SUCCESS STORY
A delicious OPPORTUNITY By Lisa Evans
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Photos by Alessandro Shinoda
id you hear the story of the Lebanese businessman who walked into a restaurant to buy baklava and walked out the owner of the place? If so, then you’ve heard the story of Mohamad Fakih. Fakih arrived in Canada at the age of 26 to help a friend whose business was struggling. He never thought he would make Canada his home, never mind become the owner of a Middle Eastern restaurant chain. After all, Fakih was trained in gemology and had previously worked as a jeweler in Lebanon. After helping his friend, Fakih decided to stay in Canada a while longer. He was attracted to the country’s multiculturalism and, as someone who believes in grasping opportunities when they come up, Fakih recognized Canada as a land full of them. Case in point, one day while walking around the Eaton Centre mall, he passed by a jewelry store. He entered and asked the owner if he could help him out for free, just so he would have something to do with his days while he explored Canada. The store owner accepted his offer and soon after asked him to stay on as a full-time employee. Within a year, he was the store’s sales manager. Having always dreamed of opening his own business, Fakih eventually found a partner and opened his own jewelry boutiques. Fakih’s move from jewelry to the restaurant business came about as he says, “by mistake.” He was taking some friends out on a boat trip to Niagara Falls. His wife suggested that he buy some baklava. “They were not Middle Eastern so she said it would be great that we should offer them something that relates to the Middle East because we’re Lebanese,” he says. His wife suggested a place that sold the best baklava in the city, Paramount Fine Foods, but it was far from the lake. “I was huffing and complaining that there was no time to prepare the boat and I was going to be late,” recalls Fakih. When he arrived at the restaurant, he was al-
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canadianimmigrant.ca
February 2016
ready annoyed. “I walked into this pretty ugly place with white walls and orange doors. I went to wash my hands and the sink was broken. The whole experience wasn’t the best,” he says. Fakih walked to the counter and asked for some baklava. The owner recognized Fakih from a magazine article and asked if he would lend him $250,000 for his restaurant. Fakih declined, saying “I just need to buy baklava,” but the restaurant owner was persistent. “He said, ‘They’re going to shut me down in five days.’ “I said ‘Here’s my card,’ hoping he would lose it or he wouldn’t call,” laughs Fakih. Monday morning at 7 a.m., the restaurant owner called. Fakih lent him the money. Four days later, the owner called. “He said the money’s gone. The debts are way bigger than $250,000. You helped me. Come get all the equipment, sell it and take your money,” recalls Fakih. When Fakih went to the restaurant, he met with the staff and spoke with the chef. He then called some friends at a consulting company and asked them how the Middle Eastern concept would perform in Canada if the restaurant were saved. “They said there’s no authentic experience here yet. It’s all mom and pop shops and some of them shut down after a couple of years because they don’t have systems,” says Fakih, who smelled an opportunity for him to grow the Middle Eastern restaurant concept. The only problem was the only experience Fakih had in the restaurant business was five days working for Tim Hortons when he first arrived in Canada. “The only thing I knew how to do was to clean tables,” he says. But Fakih felt he had a potential success on his hands. The restaurant already had a very good chef. What it didn’t have was a system, and that was something Fakih could do. He worked with consultants, putting in 18-hour days for the first year and half, building the restaurant from the back end. >>
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