“When we first started, we knew we had to do something halal, but also something different. So it was almost like a fairytale when we tasted that Peri Peri sauce in Chicago.”
None of the three of us ever had experience with the restaurant business before. We loved Nando’s and tried really hard to bring a halal Nando’s to California—right now, it’s only on the East Coast and none of the locations are halal. But then, one of us went to Chicago and saw Peri Peri. He sent the rest of us a photo and we thought, ‘wow, this looks like Nando’s.’ So we flew out to Chicago, landed on a cold December night, and visited the restaurant. It was a really small franchise back then; there were only two or three locations, and now there are 22. We ate the food right there and talked to the franchise owner about bringing Peri Peri to California. He agreed and we signed the contract the morning after.
When we came back to Fremont, it took us almost a whole year to find a place for the restaurant. Then, we luckily found a place and reconstructed it. We opened our first location in June of 2019 and we remember the line being so long that it didn’t move for five hours. People came from all over—as far as Fresno and Sacramento—to eat halal Peri Peri chicken.
When we first started, we knew we had to do something halal, but also something different. So it was almost like a fairytale when we tasted that Peri Peri sauce in Chicago. We were like, ‘this is amazing. We have to bring it to the Bay Area.’ We opened two more locations in the pandemic—Palo Alto in 2020 and Pleasanton in 2021—because we saw the demand, even though it was risky.
Not too long ago, if we wanted to eat at a halal restaurant that didn’t serve Desi cuisine, we would have to drive an hour to San Francisco. But now, there is a halal restaurant at pretty much every corner. The community has become so much larger, and it’s amazing. All three of us are very proud to bring this product and this restaurant to our community and people are loving it, both Muslims and non-Muslims.
