In 2017, Bishara Kuttab opened his casual Levantine restaurant Bishos in Roosevelt Mall, which closed during the pandemic.
There, he met his wife, Zohra Saibi, who worked for him and the now-married couple have a dual restaurant and market in Fox Chase, writes Michael Klein for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The couple relocated Bishos to Fox Chase and later that year, Saibi wanted an opportunity to showcase products from her Algerian ancestry.
The couple took over a large vacant space and opened Le Souk, a market stocked with North African and Arab sweets, nuts, spices, and gifts. In addition, there is also a counter serving bubble waffles, sweet crepes, and Turkish coffee with in-house roasted beans.
Nearly everything at Le Souk is made from scratch daily.
A worker comes in early to make the crepe-thin unleaved flatbread; the marinades and spice blends for the chicken and beef/lamb shawarmas are built everyday on vertical rotisseries.
All the sauces are made from scratch.
“My food is mostly Palestinian style. I did live in Jordan for a while, so there’s a little bit of Jordan–Syrian influence,” Kuttab said.
Le Souk’s customer base is very diverse, include Arab, Middle Eastern, Eastern Europeans, central Asian, Jewish, Israeli, and more.
Read more about the husband and wife duo behind Bishos and Le Souk in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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