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I found out some more information about McAlister’s Deli’s, headed for Towers Shopping Center.

This eatery, which is a cross between fast food and sit-down dining, is set for a mid-November opening at the Roanoke retail center, said Jeff Shawl and Chris Smith of Peak Restaurants LLC, two of the Knoxville, Tenn.-based franchise owners.

Their franchise company owns seven McAlister’s locations in Tennessee and North Carolina. They're now targeting the Roanoke Valley for future growth of this Mississippi-based chain.

During a phone conversation on Thursday, Shawl and Smith said the Towers location will seat about 148 people. It will open in the former 4,700 square feet spot of Life is Gantner, on Towers' upper level.

These restaurants serve a wide variety of sandwiches, soups, salads and other lunch and dinner fare. They're the kinds of places where you order at a front counter, take a number and find your own table. However, there are servers who bring your food to you and refill drinks.

“We try to hit that service element that some of our competitors don’t do as much,” Shawl said.

Shawl, a native of Bristol, Tenn., and Smith, who is from Virginia Beach, but whose family lives in the Roanoke Valley, said they were attracted to the Towers spot because of the traffic it already draws from Fresh Market and Kroger, which both are at Towers, and nearby Ukrop’s Super Market.

Eventually, they'd like to have four or five McAlister's restaurants across the Roanoke and New River Valleys and Lynchburg.