Najjar’s Discount Bargain Center was a landmark Birmingham oddity for 41 years. Originally located on 20th Street on Southside before UAB expansion forced a move downtown, the store remained a stubborn curiosity over the next 23 years, selling “out-dated but new” merchandise from as far back as the 1950s. The proprietor, a balding older man of few words, appropriately referred to his odd-ball inventory as “an old-fashioned general store.”

Mr. Najjar passed away three months ago at age 95. The bargain store stands empty now, its high ceiling and hardwood floors full of nothing but dust. In its day, however, Najjar’s Discount Bargain Center was a time-traveler’s dream and a place where bargain-hunters went to find items they forgot they needed: Sylvania Blue Dot flash bulbs, disco-style leisure suits with original price tags, a 98-cent set of stainless steel measuring spoons, Lloyd Bridges “Seahunt” snorkels, zodiac medallions, and unbreakable Hercules pocket combs (guaranteed for life) that sold for 25 cents apiece. If it was your lucky day, he might sell the entire box of black combs for a quarter. Najjar never used a calculator; instead he licked a pencil as he tallied purchases on paper.

The son of a Lebanese immigrant peddler, Najjar dropped out of school after the third grade to work in his father’s store in Marietta, Georgia, and the “working man” ethic came to define his life. Najjar diligently labored for his father until the morning he picked up a newspaper while returning from his honeymoon to read that downtown Marietta and the family store had burned to the ground. “They didn’t believe in insurance,” remembers Najjar’s son, retired Circuit Judge Charles Najjar. “From relatively successful people, [suddenly] they were broke again.”

Najjar sought any work available. After establishing a successful ice cream sales route in rural north Georgia, he moved to Birmingham, where he became president of the 7-Up Bottling Company. He eventually opened a successful bargain store in Fairfield, which he sold before moving to downtown Birmingham. “He ran his store literally until he died . . . ate at John’s [Restaurant] everyday,” says his son. “He worked awfully hard. They were not people of means, but they were people of discipline.”