Sahadi's

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Sahadi's storefront in 2015 185-195 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn.jpg
Sahadi's storefront in 2015

Sahadi's is a shop in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City in the U.S. state of New York. The business was established in Manhattan in the 1890s, and relocated to Brooklyn in 1941. In 2017, Sahadi's was named one of "America's Classics" by the James Beard Foundation Awards. [1] [2]

Contents

Background

A large community of immigrants from the Middle East, including Lebanese immigrants, settled in the Lower West Side of Manhattan in the 1880s. This area was often referred to as "Little Syria" and "Manhattan's Syrian Quarter". There would come to be a lot of local Syrian, and broadly, Arabic businesses. These included newspaper stands, food establishments, shops selling "Holy Land goods", religious institutions, often there to serve the broadly Christian community, at the time. Many of these immigrants were living in unsafe, and unsanitary, tenements, as well as basement apartments. However, they were still able to create a bustling economic and cultural life in this neighborhood, which later expanded to Brooklyn; Atlantic Avenue and Bay Ridge, for example. [3]

Description and history

According to their website, the shop was first founded in the mid-1890s, in Manhattan's Little Syria neighborhood, specifically, on Washington Street. Abrahim Sahadi opened the first shop in the history of Sahadi's shops, which was called A. Sahadi and Company. This shop opened mostly to serve people from the Middle East who were migrating in large numbers to this area. Abrahim Sahadi was a Lebanese immigrant himself, but there were also immigrants coming from other countries in the Middle East, such as Jordanians, Palestinians, and Syrians. Later in 1919, Abrahim's nephew Wade joined the business, and in 1941 he went into business on his own [4] .

Christine Sahadi Whelan, one of the current operators of the shop, has written an award-winning cookbook, Flavors of the Sun. [5]

See also

References

  1. McCart, Melissa (2017-01-25). "Sahadi's Snags America's Classics Award from James Beard Foundation". Eater NY. Archived from the original on 2017-01-28. Retrieved 2023-06-18.
  2. Leahey, Jason (2012-05-08). "2017 America's Classic: Sahadi's | James Beard Foundation". www.jamesbeard.org. Archived from the original on 2023-02-27. Retrieved 2023-06-18.
  3. Navarrete, Allison (2025-04-10). "New York's Best-Kept Secret: Manhattan's Syrian Quarter". Tenement Museum. Retrieved 2025-11-05.
  4. Gastronomica (2012-05-08). "Sahadi's: A Family Affair | Jason Leahey". Gastronomica. Retrieved 2025-11-05.
  5. "Sahadi's". Sahadi's. Retrieved 2025-08-01.

40°41′24.6″N73°59′36.3″W / 40.690167°N 73.993417°W / 40.690167; -73.993417