Walid Ali, chef and owner of Mediterranean Deli, shows off one of his gyros at 981 W. Fairbanks Aven. in Orlando. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)

Everyone, it seems, is Walid Ali’s friend. It is the greeting for which he is known and the hearth that warms customers old and new at the Mediterranean Deli, the latter of which are virtually guaranteed to morph into the former.

He has been greeting them this way for 17 years.

“Our customers are my friends,” says Ali, a Beirut, Lebanon, native who moved stateside in 1991. “They are very nice people, and some have been coming here since they were small. I have customers I met at 10 years old who are now 27. In ways, I am like an uncle — like family.”

A longtime favorite, I first wrote about this modest, counter-service joint about 10 years ago, but pondered whether to showcase them for National Gyro Day (Sept. 1).

I mean, even if a lot of folks don’t know how to say it — it’s pronounced yee-roh — everyone knows the Mediterranean Deli, right?

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“Mediterranean Deli is everything!” came a comment when I mentioned a recent visit on Facebook. “I wish I had some right now!”

But then, another: “I haven’t been there yet! Where?”

It was a marvelous tipping point for this IYKYK Orlando mainstay. (That’s hashtag-speak “if you know, you know.”) And whoever doesn’t know, should.

The Mediterranean Deli can be found at 981 W. Fairbanks Ave. in Orlando. (Orlando Sentinel)

The Mediterranean Deli has no website. Its Facebook page, featuring the same cute caricature of Ali you’ll see on their T-shirts as its profile pic, has never made a post. Seventeen years and a solid weekday lunch rush says it needs neither.

The food here is that good.

Walid Ali, chef and owner of Mediterranean Deli at 981 West Fairbanks Avenue in Orlando, on Monday, August 22, 2022. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)

For one thing, the savory, flavory cones of meat from which the gyros are carved are made in house — which isn’t entirely typical.

“Most people buy them,” Ali, 57, explains. Large-scale manufacturers such as Kronos produce what their particular brand calls Gyrokones, which are shipped frozen to all manner of purveyors, be they gyro or shawarma, in varied meat combinations (they even do a similar product for al pastor tacos), but at the Mediterranean Deli, it’s made fresh.

“Here, it is all lamb. We have a machine to break up the meat and we put in all the spice — garlic, onion, salt,” Ali explains, rattling off ingredients. “We freeze it for the next day to cook.”

The meat cones at the Mediterranean Deli are all made in-house. They go through four or five each day. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)

Sizzling steadily as it is carved from vertical spits, Ali goes through four or five each day as customers come in for that perennially cheery greeting that precedes the eating.

“This is his personality,” Khaled Ali, 27, says of his father. “Everywhere we go, he quickly makes friends.” Both he and his sister, Safa, 20, work at the deli on a part-time basis while going to school.

But why gyros and not the Lebanese shawarma?

Walid Ali, center, chef and owner of Mediterranean Deli, with his children, Khaled and Safa. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)

“The gyro is easier to do faster,” the elder Ali explains. In fact, at his earlier jobs in food service — first in Lebanon and later Bulgaria — he did make shawarma.

“In Lebanon or Syria, we have shawarma. In Greece, gyro. In Turkey, they do the doner kebab. They are similar, but not the same. Recipes and ways you make them are a little different. It’s one of the reasons I say Mediterranean Deli. I do things that are from Greece and things that are from Lebanon — falafel, grape leaves, hummus, spanakopita…”

All of it is made fresh daily.

“With shawarma, it’s harder to be very fast.”

And Ali needs to crank those gyros out.

“It’s what most people order,” says his son. “Probably 90 percent of what we sell.”

The simple delight — spiced lamb, crisp vegetables, cool housemade tzatziki, swathed in soft, warm pita — is one worth celebrating. Especially here. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)

These days there’s a little more room for the customers, some of whom drive more than 45 minutes for the food. Ali expanded the shop a little over a year ago when a new landlord took over the plaza, updating the exterior.

On the back door, that caricature of a cheery Walid in a tight, muscle-defining T-shirt denotes his status as a multiple title-winner for bodybuilding in his native Lebanon back in the ‘90s.

“I was a champion for five years,” says Ali, who started training in a makeshift home gym at age 15. “I liked to be in shape, to be strong, and I liked bodybuilding. Then a gym opened near my home and I worked out there.”

Years later, Ali would travel back home to compete. He’s kept up the physique, but a recent injury set him on the sidelines for a time. He started back a few months ago, hitting the gym for about a half-hour, every day after work.

“Everyone there is my friend, too,” he says.

It’s a charming trait shared by his three-year-old grandson, also named Walid.

“Everywhere we go, everyone is ‘my friend, my friend,’” Khaled, the boy’s father, laughs. “He learned this from his grandfather. They are identical.”

Ali is pleased to find himself back in the Orlando Sentinel after quite a few years. In fact, he attributes much of his restaurant’s success to my predecessor, Scott Joseph, whose 2004 story still hangs on the wall.

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“It was like magic for the business,” Ali recalls of the write-up, in which Joseph praised the food. “It was very hard when I started here, he really opened the door.”

Joseph did another on his website in 2011, describing a “gyro so large and so full of seasoned meat, onions and thick tzatziki that it was impossible to pick up — I had to eat it with a plastic knife and fork.”

The Orlando Sentinel write-up by former food critic Scott Joseph still hangs on the wall at the Mediterranean Deli. "It opened the door for me in my business," says chef/owner Walid Ali. (Khaled Ali / Courtesy photo)

The description is sound, but I’m not so polished. Even with tiny hands, I manage without.

In fact, Ali — who comes in at 6 a.m. daily (”time to make the dolma...”) — may be the most adept gyro maker in the city. I can’t remember a time it’s fallen apart on me, though I admit I can’t finish the thing in one sitting.

Joseph also mentions Ali’s memorable warmth and hospitality.

Over the years, this has remained a constant, though the lines have gotten longer — occasionally precluding a personal hello from the host.

“Sometimes they come in during a big rush and I am very busy and they wait for me. They like to hear it: ‘How you doing, my friend?!’ but I’m working and I don’t hear.” He laughs.

“I do what I can do.”

Mediterranean Deli: 981 W. Fairbanks Ave. in Orlando, 407-539-2650

Want to reach out? Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group or follow @fun.things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.