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H O L D C O U R T.

Pita Chip
Expands, Shows
Interfaith Solidarity
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
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8 JUNE 9, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
or Howard Klayman and Omar
Alsaadi, food is the great equal-
izer. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s
also the industry that’s brought them
both success.

The co-owners — one Jewish, one
Muslim — of the Middle Eastern
restaurant Pita Chip expanded their
business with a new brick-and-mortar
restaurant in Yardley last month. Their
continued partnership-turned-friend-
ship is a testament to the ability of food
to bring people together, they said.

“While we’re building a brand, we
want to do as much good as we can.

That’s something that’s in our fabric,”
Klayman said. “We just want to spread
our food out there and have people
come together, no matter where they
are from and hopefully, solve their
problems through a meal.”
On its May 18 opening week-
end, the restaurant raised money for
Congregation Kol Emet, down the road
in Morrisville, and Caring for Friends,
which provides food and compan-
ionship for disabled and elderly iso-
lated community members. Between
its opening weekend and other recent
fundraisers for the Kisses For Kyle
Foundation and Nationalities Service
Center, Klayman and Alsaadi raised
more than $10,000.

“We obviously want to be good neigh-
bors, first and foremost,” Klayman said.

The business has come a long way since
its 2015 opening at Temple University.

Alsaadi, one of Pita Chip’s found-
ers, had a humble idea of opening up
a falafel stand by a college campus,
reminiscent of his early life growing
up in Syria.

“​​I remember buying a falafel sand-
wich from a falafel stand and standing
on the street and eating it with a bottle
of soda,” Alsaadi said. “It’s all that stuff
brings ... childhood memories.”
Alsaadi is not a restaurateur by train-
ing. He immigrated to the United States
in 1979, studying civil and environ-
mental engineering at the University
of Texas at Austin. He went on to get
his master’s, but he always had a love
for food.

His mother frequently cooked with
diverse spices and flavor profiles, some-
thing he’s tried to recreate with Pita
Chip, describing the restaurant con-
cept as “Tex-Mex-style food with a
Middle Eastern flair.”
Along with business partner
Mouhanad Kabbani, the two dreamed
up something more ambitious than
a falafel stand. Three years after Pita
Chip’s first opening, the two opened
another restaurant in University City
in 2018.

It was around this time that Howard
Klayman joined the team as co-owner,
though he had worked with the duo
almost since the restaurant’s inception.

Klayman, like Alsaadi, was not
trained to own a restaurant, but his
love for the industry runs deep. A
self-proclaimed “foodie,” Klayman
came from a Northeast Philadelphia
Jewish family, who, in the 1950s, was
in the pizza business.

Almost seven decades later, Klayman
was working in the food distribu-
tion industry and was approached by
Alsaadi and Kabbani to provide distri-
bution for the budding business.

As Pita Chip grew, so did Klayman’s
interest in becoming more involved in
the brand.

“I tried their food after their orig-
inal testing, and I was sold, frankly,”
Klayman said.

Though proud of their respective
roots and partnerships, Klayman and
Alsaadi don’t see the big fuss about
being interfaith restaurant owners,
though it’s a frequent joke among staff.

“I really don’t think it should be



something that a Muslim or Arab
and someone Jewish — it shouldn’t be
something unusual,” Alsaadi said.

Th at philosophy is refl ected in their
food. Falafel isn’t something people
usually make in their homes, Alsaadi
said. It’s frequently bought at restau-
rants and stands, which means the
variations on the food are endless.

In the greater debate about whether
or not falafel is even an Israeli food,
Alsaadi shuts down dissenters.

Food variations abound in the
Middle East, with diff erent takes on
falafel existing even within regions of
Syria, Alsaadi said.

It’s a food defi ned by the region of
the Middle East, not a particular coun-
try. It’s an Israeli food because people
in Israel eat it. It’s a Palestinian and
Lebanese food, too.

Food can link an individual to a geo-
graphic area, which is both personal to
someone with memories of a specifi c
dish, and communal, with individuals
all over a region fi nding joy in a shared
cuisine. “Instead of making it a diff erence, it
should bring people together,” Alsaadi
said. JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com From left: Partners Mouhanad Kabbani, Omar Alsaadi
and Howard Klayman at Pita Chip’s new location in
Yardley Courtesy of Pita Chip
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