{"id":2111,"date":"2018-04-26T15:54:46","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T19:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/?p=2111"},"modified":"2018-05-03T12:59:17","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T16:59:17","slug":"the-businessman-of-gilpin-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/2018\/04\/26\/the-businessman-of-gilpin-court\/","title":{"rendered":"The Businessman of Gilpin Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Fuad Fara, employee <\/em>and chef at Gilpin Court’s only convenience store, helps a customer in Richmond, VA. (Photos by Nidhi Sharma)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

by Nidhi Sharma<\/p>\n

I gesture towards Gilpin Court, craggy and salmon-colored in the distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you see, when you look over there?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n

Fuad Fara, employee and chef at ANA, Gilpin Court\u2019s only deli and convenience store, barely turns around. He grins, sly and sunny. Most people look at Gilpin Court and see danger or despair.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see a business opportunity,\u201d Fara says.<\/p>\n

ANA sits at the edge of the projects, a tiny yellow building in the middle of an empty lot, crammed with almost every snack you can imagine. Fara, who the locals call Nobel, makes sandwiches and cheese fries and funnel cakes in the back. His fried chicken is halal, prepared in accordance with Muslim law.<\/p>\n

Fara is a modern nomad. He has moved back and forth from Yemen to Brooklyn, from Michigan to Richmond, for all of his life. He is too restless to stay in one place.<\/p>\n

Fara\u2019s eyes, ancient and huge on his slender, tanned face, are steady on mine. The admittedly desolate surroundings don\u2019t faze him\u2014he is used to carving out belonging in each new city he comes across.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Fara’s famous halal fried chicken<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI stick around for five or six years, then I move to a new place to study,\u201d Fara said. \u201cHere, I am the only good food place around. My customers don\u2019t really have transportation, but I get them everything they could want. Stuff flies off the shelves.\u201d<\/p>\n

He tells me it doesn\u2019t matter how much money you have if you\u2019re in a bad location. But with even $20,000 and a good location, he says, you\u2019re in business.<\/p>\n

Fara is slick and clever, a true businessman of Gilpin Court. It\u2019s something this place needs. He laughs joyfully at his good fortune, but he is proud of ANA, and he is proud of his food. He makes his sandwiches with love, and he greets his customers with an easy familiarity.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople come in here from all over,\u201d Fara said. \u201cThey tell me: \u2018I heard about this place, make me a sandwich.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Dana Hayden\u2019s favorite restaurant. I meet her outside ANA — she tells me she\u2019s come here six times in the past week to check if they\u2019ve restocked their seafood salad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t explain it, it\u2019s just so good,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI come here so often that the location is saved in my phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

A pair of 14-year-old girls loiter out front, youthful and gangly. They come to ANA every day, and giggle when I ask them if they ever cross I-95 for food\u2014where would they go?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing to compete with on the other side of the highway,\u201d Fara said. \u201cIf you think there is, I challenge you to come here and try our food. Ours is the best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I gesture towards Gilpin Court, craggy and salmon-colored in the distance. \u201cWhat do you see, when you look over there?\u201d I ask. Fuad Fara, employee and chef at ANA, Gilpin Court\u2019s only deli and convenience store, barely turns around. He grins, sly and sunny. \u201cI see a business opportunity,\u201d Fara says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4014,"featured_media":2129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[85512,85253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-doing-business","category-the-far-side-of-95"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2018\/04\/IMG_5722-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-y3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4014"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}