HUSSEIN’S ROZANA NAJAR’S

Najar’s is not a van — it’s a listed building rented yearly from St. John’s painted Oxford blue. Alex told us, “we started almost twenty years ago. My brother-in-law started it, and I came over to give a hand. Back then, you could walk in. We liked it because we could keep you lot out of the rain. But, actually, it’s better now. A lot better.”

Alex spoke to Cherwell with George, his pet pigeon, perched on the end of his right pointer finger. George the pigeon is a Najar’s regular — he lives in the eaves of St John’s and he swoops down when Alex opens up. So much of Najar’s revolves around looking after their relationships with regulars like George; hence their closing time at 9pm, which means they don’t really have to deal with drunk people. Alex says, “We don’t want to fall out with our regulars. People come in, you know, students that come in every day and they’re different people when they’re sober. The last thing we want to do is ruin that relationship that we have with them… we know a lot of people by their first name and they do the same with us.

“The pressure can get to us sometimes, but it’s you guys that make our day, you know, you come in and you ask how’s it going, and just that kind of snaps you out of your bad day.”

And Najar’s is, of course, an ‘us’ — Alex is just the maestro. He tells me, “everyone is from a different part of the world here as well. I’m from Syria, we’ve got one Bengali guy, we’re Kurdish as well. So it’s a real mix, and people come and go here, they don’t tend to stay. The ones that do are the regular faces that you’ll see here for a long time, but we do get the odd guys that come in and do the dishes.”

As for Najar’s menu, Alex tells me, “I like the lighter stuff. I like the tabbouleh either by itself or with bread, a little bit hummus and a couple of falafels. Trying to watch my weight after COVID… I guarantee you go anywhere else and try anybody else’s falafel. You’re never going to taste something like this. I’ve never tried them but it’s down to these two things. Frozen food. Putting water and oil together. We come in at three o’clock every morning — Maz comes in and prepares everything.