The Halal Man with A Plan: Ahmad Rad’s Journey to The American Dream

Ahmad Rad, an Afghan immigrant in Fresh Meadows, Queens, has decided to strike out on his own. After 19 years of co-owning a halal food cart, he is opening a takeout halal restaurant.

Ahmad says he wants to have a business that gives him the leisure of not working seven days a week—he envisions training young people to work for him after a year or two and then kicking back as the boss. But most of all, Ahmad wants to feel accomplished. "When you get old, you have to face the mirror," he said, "You have to ask yourself, 'What do you have to show for it?'"

So, in October 2020, Ahmad borrowed $50,000 from family and friends. He doesn't want a partner this time—the restaurant is something he wants to build all by himself. He leased a space that once housed a soul food restaurant on Franklin Avenue in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, a quickly gentrifying neighborhood. Then he bought some secondhand equipment and got to work—by himself— slowly renovating his space. "Inshallah," he said at the start of February, "my restaurant will open up in March 2021."

Ahmad is sure of one thing: his future restaurant—which is not yet named, and the hours for which are not yet decided—will not serve meat. Is it going to be vegan? Is it going to be vegetarian? He doesn't know yet. Although Ahmad co-owns a halal food cart in Bushwick, he still doesn't trust the halal industry because he thinks many slap "fake halal" labels on the meat. However, he trusts his current halal meat supplier because it's a small business, but this small business, unfortunately, does not have the infrastructure to supply Ahmad's future restaurant. "I don't want to mistakenly serve non-halal meat," he says. "I don't want to be responsible for that."

Ahmad is a devout man. He doesn't drink or take loans from the bank. He believes that, through God, everything will fall into place. He cares a lot about his effect on those around him. "I don't force my bad habits onto others," he says, "One day, I am going to be judged by God, and I don't want to be responsible for anyone."

***

Ahmad states that he'll succeed because his restaurant "would be better." Nevertheless, in order to be one hundred percent sure, one night in February, he went on a covert spying mission to a small place down the block, Clementine Bakery.

He stood inside his competitor's restaurant, head bent, intently studying the to-go menu on a table in front of him. At age 49, his eyes looked swollen from lack of sleep. His face is adorned with a neat, fluffy, white beard, and from his always smiling mouth hangs a loose tobacco cigarette. (It should be noted that smoking, although not outright forbidden, is not considered halal within Muslim culture because it harms the body. Ahmad, despite his devotion, sees no issue with it.)

Clementine Bakery describes itself as a plant-based, community-rooted Brooklyn bakery, café, and grocer offering vegan pastries, custom cakes, to-go meals, and provisions. It is small and cozy inside, with lush green plants on windowsills and vegan groceries sitting in beautiful handmade baskets. It has a lovely outdoor sitting area.

"Can we get three falafel sandwiches to go?" Ahmad asked the white, young cashier standing behind the counter

"It's actually a bowl, not a sandwich. Is that okay?"

"Yes. And can we also get some cauliflower wings?" Ahmad said, smiling brightly at the cashier.

He turned around and smirked slightly at me. That the restaurant only served falafel bowls and not falafel sandwiches made Ahmad extremely happy. When he opens his halal restaurant in a couple of months, he will be serving falafel sandwiches.

Back at his restaurant, Ahmad ate the falafel bowl from Clementine Bakery, and he wasn't pleased with it. He thought the falafel was unseasoned and bland. The falafel bowl was filled with quinoa, and this was his first-time eating quinoa. Ahmad wasn't impressed because the quinoa also wasn't seasoned. Nevertheless, he was very happy. "I won't be serving quinoa," he said. "And my falafel will be seasoned." A wide smile spread across his face.

***

When Ahmad first moved to the United States with his family in 1987 from Afghanistan as a 14-year-old, he lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. While in high school, Ahmad started working part-time at a shop where he made doughnuts by hand. He continued this while attending college. He studied biology but then realized it wasn't his path. He wanted to make fast, easy money, so he dropped out of college and went into the food business full-time. In 2001 he became a full-time doughnut baker and had his own business, catering office events and special occasions. Then, in 2003, he discovered the possibilities of halal food carts.

Halal is an Arabic word that means lawful or permitted. It is also the Muslim standard for wholesome food, as prescribed in the Quran. This term is usually the opposite of haram which means unlawful, not permitted, or harmful. Animals such as lambs, chickens, cows, and goats are considered halal and are okay for Muslims to eat. Animals such as pigs are not. To make a slaughter halal, workers follow the Islamic guidelines of reciting a prayer, isolating the animal from the rest of its group, and making the process quick and painless for the animal.

Though the exact origin of the halal food cart business in New York City is disputed, it appears to have begun with halal hot dog stands in the 1980s. The stands became full-fledged food carts in the 1990s and gained popularity when three Egyptian men—now known as The Halal Guys—opened a cart that catered to Muslim taxi drivers who at the time had few outlets for authentic halal food.

Many halal carts serve foods such as chicken over rice, lamb over rice, gyro, or kebab. A mixture of red and white sauce is usually sprinkled over the rice. The white sauce is the decisive ingredient that makes or breaks every halal cart. It comes in many different forms in different cultures, but The Halal Guys reportedly invented white sauce in the American halal cart business. Nowadays, every halal cart has its variation of white sauce, depending on the culture of the cart owner. However, exact recipes are not—under any conditions— shared with anyone. They are the trade secrets of the halal food cart world.

Halal food is a staple of street food in New York City. It has become the fastest way for most Middle Eastern and South-Central Asian immigrants to make money and live their version of the American dream.

So many immigrants got into the halal cart business that in 2006, the NYC's Department of Health & Mental Hygiene stopped issuing permits for the carts, limiting the growth of a business already constrained by permits since the 1980s. When the health department stopped issuing halal cart permits in 2006, however, it led to the rise of underground permits. Many immigrants wanting to own a halal cart started renting permits from friends. As a result, permits that used to cost about $200 to obtain legally from the health department spiked up to $20,000 a year to rent. Many Middle Eastern and South-Central Asian immigrants who saw owning a halal cart business as their ticket to the American dream couldn't afford this steep price.

Fortunately, Ahmad was one of the lucky ones. He was able to obtain a permit in 2003 with a family friend. Their cart still sits in front of the Wycoff Medical Hospital in Brooklyn. Though this has been a fairly lucrative business for him, Ahmad hopes his future restaurant will be even more profitable. "Inshallah, this is going to be different."

***

"He's only opening this restaurant in this area because he wants to cater to the white people," Ahmad's friend, Tamim, told me one evening while we were all sitting in Ahmad's future restaurant. Tamim was in the store to help Ahmad fix one of the secondhand fridges he bought for the restaurant. Though Ahmad laughed out loud at Tamim's proclamation, he did not dispute his friend's assessment.

Tamim's joke might have some truth to it. Within the past decade, Crown Heights has seen a significant increase in the white population. In addition, the Franklin Avenue Station located at Fulton Avenue and Fulton Street makes it easier for commuters to travel between Manhattan and Brooklyn. It's an affluent neighborhood with beautiful brownstone houses, lush green trees, diverse restaurants and bars, organic supermarkets, and nicely paved sidewalks.

Ahmad's future restaurant sits right in the middle of all this beauty on Franklin Avenue. Unfortunately, though, his building seems to be the odd one out. Compared to the beautiful brownstone houses around it, Ahmad's building doesn't look like much. It's a grey-looking stone house with a brown door and a red awning attached to it. A silver mailbox sits to its side, and the walkway leading to the door needs repair. The inside of Ahmad's future restaurant doesn't look like much either. There were chaotically stacked chairs blocking the entrance. The floor needed an intensive deep cleaning, the walls needed painting, all the secondhand equipment (fridges, counters, prep tables) required desperate repair, the paintings needed to be hung, the electricity needed to be turned on, and the dead flowers sitting at the entrance needed to be thrown away. When it all comes together, the messy space at 344 Franklin Avenue will bring Ahmad Rad one step closer to his American dream.

***

"To open a successful restaurant, you need to have a good concept and business plan, not just wing it," Tamim told me. "You need to have a background in food. And you need to have partners in the business you can lean on." According to data, Tamim is right. About 60% of new restaurants fail within the first year across the country, and 80% don't make it to their fifth year.

Many of these restaurants fail because owners lack the things Tamim listed. However, since March of 2020, the restaurant industry in New York City has dealt with mandatory closings, covid 19 restrictions, and social distancing orders. The pandemic forced many established restaurants to close their doors. Though Congress created The Restaurant Revitalization Fund in 2021, a program that allowed restaurants to apply for grants that would help them offset the loss of business, 65% of New York restaurants couldn't get them because the funds had been depleted by the time they applied. Of the 23,650 restaurants in New York City, about 8,333 shut down in 2020. As of January 2022, about 1,000 more have closed. This is the industry Ahmad is trying to break into without a business plan.

***

When Ahmad leased the space for his future restaurant in October 2020, the landlord gave him four months rent-free. This is a standard practice in the restaurant industry. This allows future restaurant owners—in those four months—to plan, complete any needed renovations, and start the business on a sound footing before they start paying rent. Ahmad's restaurant needed a significant amount of renovation—electricity needed to be turned on, his two fridges needed repairs, the kitchen needed new flooring, the vents needed to be cleaned out—but in the four months' rent-free period he got from his landlord, Ahmad did not hire any professional worker to conduct such necessary renovations. Instead, he worked tirelessly, seven days a week, nonstop, sometimes by himself—fixing things as he went—other times with family members, to make his halal restaurant come to life.

By mid-March, Ahmad's future restaurant was on its fifth month without electricity. Spring weather in New York City can be unpredictable—cold one day, hot the next—but the temperature inside the restaurant stayed constantly frigid. There hadn't been any new renovation in the last month.

Ahmad and his landlord, another stubborn Muslim man, have been having disagreements about the electricity. Ahmad's fourth free month was up, but he refused to pay rent until the landlord fixed the electricity. The landlord was angry at Ahmad for the breach of his lease. Each believed he was right.

On the day the electricians—whom Ahmad's landlord had continually promised would come—finally did, Ahmad wasn't too happy dealing with them. The electrician with a Jamaican accent had barged into the restaurant with a sulky teenager at his side. Ahmad had taken offense at the man—who later introduced himself as David— because he had "forcefully" walked into the restaurant and started giving orders without a "greeting" or an introduction.

"My name is Ahmad. When you walk into somebody's place, you say hi," Ahmad said while reaching out to shake David's hand. David looked like he didn't want to shake Ahmad's hand but did anyway to avoid more awkwardness. But to let Ahmad understand he wasn't there on a

friendly visit, he added, "Oh, we don't have time for that. We are here in a hurry." Ahmad, getting the message, moved into business mode.

"Well, I don't know what the landlord told you. He has to get…."

"Listen," David interrupted Ahmad. "I just tell you what I need. No electric deep fryer? Everything is gas?"

"Yes, everything runs on gas," Ahmad replied. For the first time, I noticed anxiety in Ahmad's voice. He played it off by smiling each time he answered a question. I hadn't before seen anyone belittle Ahmad. I felt a pang of pity for him. I had initially wanted to profile Ahmad to see what the opening of a restaurant would look like, but the day was yet to come. The electricity was scheduled to be fixed at a later date.

The restaurant was originally scheduled to open in early March; Ahmad suggests that not having electricity is stopping the grand opening. Not the floor that looked like it needed an intensive deep cleaning or the walls that needed painting, or all the secondhand equipment that looked like they required desperate repair, or the dead flowers sitting at the entrance that needed to be put away, or that he doesn't have a business plan, and is just "winging it." Not any of these things. It's the electricity. "Once that's fixed, everything will come along.