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Doug Jones came to work Monday with his dogs.

He checked his inventory at Fishers Grille and walked next door with his Labradors, Reagan and Zeke, to see the progress of the old convenience store at this well-traveled corner.

He’s turning it into a pizza place. He’ll call it The Corner Slice at Fisher Park — at the corner of Fisher and North Elm — and bring in a business neighbors say they hope won’t go away.

That corner has been a revolving door for commerce. First, it became home to a gas station. Then, the building became a dentist’s office, a pharmacy, a janitorial supply company, a plant shop and a spot to buy Mexican statues.
It also became the building where Mohammed “Red Mike’’ Ali was killed.

In November 2008, as Sunday school started at First Presbyterian Church across the street, police say a man burst into Red Mike Grocery and shot Ali as he stood behind the counter.

Doug got the news while visiting his native city of Detroit, right before a Red Wings hockey game. His cell phone rang. It was his stepson, Josh.

“Red Mike’s been shot,’’ Josh told him.

A suspect eventually was arrested. Like many of his Fisher Park neighbors, Doug had worried about Red Mike Grocery.

He had seen the fights, the trash, the panhandlers and the Red Mike patrons drinking quart-sized beers behind Fishers Grille.

It jeopardized what he had helped create.

Doug bought Fishers Grille in 1993, and he had turned it into a neighborhood hangout where customers could drink 10 types of draft beer and eat sandwiches, chicken wings and burgers called Dixie.

Walk in, and you’ll see eye candy everywhere: autographed photos by the front door, ACC banners near the kitchen, framed newspaper pages along the back hall and a booted foot from Santa in the ceiling by the back door.

Greensboro’s coat-and-tie crowd come for lunch, sports fans come on weekends and blues lovers come every Tuesday night where, if you’re lucky, you can dance with a great-grandmother nicknamed Hurricane Helen.

Red Mike Grocery put a whole different spin on the fun-loving corner of Fisher and North Elm. Doug even had two families tell him they were thinking of moving because of Red Mike.

Neighbors were frustrated and angry over what they saw happening to their historic neighborhood.

When Red Mike Grocery closed last spring, Doug bought the building for $260,000, and he and Josh went back and forth over what to do. The final call? Pizza.

Doug will use recipes from one of his friends, a third-generation pizza family operating Yanni’s in Morehead City, and he’ll continue his decades-long foray into food and beer.

He started in high school, working at his mother’s bakery on Grove Street, and later joined the Army where he became a short-order cook skilled at making sweet-tasting biscuits.

When he was discharged in July 1968, Doug came back to Greensboro and either cooked for or ran a handful of beer-and-burger places. The Captain’s Lodge. Bob Jones Sandwich Bar. Miles From Nowhere. Carl’s. BG McGee’s. Fishers Grille. And now, The Corner Slice at Fisher Park, a spot his 27-year-old stepson will manage day to day.

“This is all I’ve ever done,’’ says Doug, 62, his two dogs nearby. “I can’t imagine putting on a coat and tie every day. Jesus! Could you do that? I talk to the attorneys who I know, and that’s what they do every day. And that’s fine.

“But I want to wear shorts 10 months out of the year. And flip-flops. I’m not out to impress.’’

The Corner Slice is scheduled to open in late February. Those two Fisher Park families who told Doug they were moving? Not anymore.

They’re staying.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com