Iraqi newcomers open restaurant on Glengarry Avenue

A meeting in a Windsor barbershop between two refugees from war-torn Iraq provided the ingredients for a new eatery on Glengarry Avenue serving Middle Eastern cuisine.

Mahmood Dalboohi and his partner Ahmed Yas both fled the same conflict in Iraq but their respective journeys to Windsor were considerably different.

Dalboohi knew it was time to flee when four men, their faces concealed beneath scarves, pulled up beside him at a gas station and threatened to kidnapand kill his son if he didn't leave the country. As a soldier in the Iraqi army, Dalboohi was a target for terrorists.

"I called my wife immediately and I warned her don't open the door for anyone until I come," Dalboohi said.

He fled the country two days later and spent five years in Syria before coming to Windsor.

His business partner Yas left in a similarly abrupt fashion. One morning, a note on his car threatened to kill his children if he didn't leave the country. He fled to Canada in 2015 with his wife and three children and opted to settle in Windsor to be close to family in Michigan.

Dalboohi had operated a cafe while living in Syria and he andYas made the decision to open a restaurant in Windsor while chatting at a local barber shop.

"We were talking as friends and then we get this idea and find this place," says Dalboohi, leaning against one of three pool tables at the front of his restaurant. "We had to fix up."

It took extensive work over three months but the partners persisted and opened the Al-Sultan Cafe, which serves Canadian fare as well as Middle Eastern cuisine.

Yas, who was a mechanic in Iraq, is slowly but surely getting a handle on the rigours of running a busy restaurant. He feels blessed with the opportunity to provide for his young family.

"I'm just thanking the gods to help me get this job," says Yas. "I think I get something special here in Canada."

Dalboohi, who has a young son himself, is happy his military days are behind him but said he would step up and serve his adopted country of Canada should his service ever be required.