Ali Saleh had good reason to be confident when he opened his new restaurant in Santa Maria—he had a built-in following.
For years, he noticed that many of his Mediterranean cuisine-seeking customers at Jaffa Café in the Village of Arroyo Grande, were making the trip from the Santa Maria Valley, particularly at lunchtime.
“Santa Maria is in desperate need for this kind of food,” Saleh said.
When the former Starbucks Coffee location near FoodMaxx on South Broadway became available, Saleh jumped at the chance to open a Jaffa Café in Santa Maria.
He spent months remodeling the coffeehouse into a warm and inviting restaurant, open daily for lunch and dinner, complete with outdoor dining on the dog-friendly patio.
If the name of the restaurant sounds familiar, it’s likely because Saleh’s brother, Adnan Saleh, opened the area’s first Jaffa Café, in San Luis Obispo in 2002.
It was a natural fit for these experienced restaurateurs to serve Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine.
“This is easy for me because this is our food. I grew up with this food,” Saleh said. “I am Palestinian. I was born in Jaffa in Israel, outside of Nazareth; Jaffa of Nazareth—that’s the small village I was born in. That’s where the name for the restaurant came from.”
Jaffa Café is known for its shawarma pita wraps. A variety of meats—chicken thighs, lamb, and top sirloin—are marinated in a special shawarma seasoning for about two days before they are put on the rotisserie spit to slow cook.
“We mix seven or eight different spices to come up with that seasoning,” he said. “Some people have tried [shawarma] overseas, in Europe or in the Middle East. When they try it once, they just fall in love with it. It’s not spicy, but the aroma is amazing. The flavor, there’s nothing like it!”
Gyros are Jaffa Café’s No. 1 seller.
“It’s very, very popular! It’s a beef and lamb combo. It comes in a pita wrap with garlic sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and tahini sauce made out of a sesame seed paste.”
Saleh is also proud of his falafel, made fresh daily from scratch.
“Our falafel is to die for! If you’re vegan or gluten-free, this is for you,” Saleh said. “We soak the garbanzo beans for about three days to become soft, then we mix it with parsley, spices, jalapeño, and onions and deep fry them. Some places use eggs or flour—that’s not gluten free or vegan. We use garbanzo beans flour. We actually grind the garbanzo beans and make flour out of it and mix it with our falafel mix before we deep fry it. When you open the falafel, it has to be green, not brown. Ours is green and very moist.”
Another popular menu item is the kabob platter, which comes with hummus, lettuce, pita bread, and rice.
“Our yellow rice is very healthy and very delicious. We use spices in our rice like cinnamon and nutmeg. It’s also vegan and gluten free.”
Want to sample a variety of dishes? Jaffa Café’s combo plate is a good deal at $9.99. Choose from three different items including, falafel, baba ganoush, chicken pesto, garden salad with a choice of meat, grape leaves, tabouleh, angel hair pasta, tomato, cucumber, hummus, rice, or soup.
End your meal with the house-made baklava, a rich Mediterranean pastry made with layers of phyllo dough, chopped walnuts, and spices.
All first-time customers at the café receive free baklava!
Another thing to know when dining here: “We encourage people to eat first and pay after you eat,” Saleh said. “It’s a tradition. We grew up like this. You go to a restaurant, you eat, enjoy your meal, and when you’re on your way out, you pay.”
And he makes this promise:
“You come here once and you get hooked.”
Sun wine and food columnist Wendy Thies Sell can be contacted at [email protected].
