Taste of Egypt Chef Ehab Radwan (Image: Taste of Egypt Facebook)
Mediterranean restaurant Taste of Egypt began construction this week on its new restaurant to be located at the East Point Shopping centre.
Executive Chef and Co-owner Ehab Radwan says despite the pandemic and reduced hours, their sales have increased 37 per cent from September 2020 and increased more than 70 per cent since the start of the pandemic – the majority of which is derived from takeout and delivery.
However, Radwan and staff were told last December by their landlord that their uptown building was being sold to developer Percy Wilbur. The new landlord would take possession in January, giving them three months to find a new place.
Ehab and Paula Radwan outside of Taste of Egypt’s temporary quarters (Image: Taste of Egypt Facebook)
“I had a contract until the end of this year,” said Radwan, who added the landlord bought the rest of the lease from the owners so they could leave early.
The buyout helped with some costs, but moving and renovation delays pushed the original opening from the end of April to August.
Radwan said the cost of putting the restaurant into storage and laying off his staff for three months before opening its new location would have been very difficult.
“One of my staff told me, ‘If I get laid off for three months, I wouldn’t have be able to put food on my table,’” he shared. They searched for a temporary location for takeout and delivery to keep working and set themselves up at the Thistle-St. Andrew’s Curling Club in the north end, where they rent out its kitchen.
Four years ago, one of the marketing managers in East Point reached out to Radwan in interest about opening another Taste of Egypt location in east Saint John.
“They wanted a nice local restaurant there, they pushed me hard to go there,” he said.
At the time Radwan declined, but after their uptown building was purchased he reached out to the manager to see if there was a space available. “From Walmart up to East Point, we are the only local, non-chain restaurant in the area,” he added.
Taste of Egypt’s new location at 11 East Point Way will be a modern-design restaurant with a Mediterranean theme. Its layout will expand and seating doubled, with more dine-in seating inside and patio seating outside for a total of 122 seats.
The current opening date for the restaurant is mid-August.
“We have a lot of people who haven’t tried our food because they don’t go Uptown – the parking issues is the problem I always hear about,” he said. “It’s a lot of traffic in this area and we think we’re going to do at least three to four times in sales than what we are doing now.”
This story was originally published on Huddle.Today – an Acadia Broadcasting Limited content partner.
