{"id":2407,"date":"2018-05-03T01:02:31","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T05:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/?p=2407"},"modified":"2018-05-03T15:18:18","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T19:18:18","slug":"sahara-in-jackson-ward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/2018\/05\/03\/sahara-in-jackson-ward\/","title":{"rendered":"Sahara in Jackson Ward"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The restaurant’s glass door on a cloudy day<\/em> (Photos by Fatema Al Darii<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Fatema Al Darii<\/p>\n

Sahara Cafe and Grill caught my attention because the owner, Mariam Al Saiyd, is a native of Sudan, and I overheard her speaking with an Arabic accent. Frankly, I was surprised to find an Arab-run business in Jackson Ward. But, this also meant that the food is genuinely authentic.<\/p>\n

Mariam is a strong, hardworking woman. She\u2019s been living in the Richmond area since 1998, when she ran a gift shop during a particularly dark period in the city’s history. \u201cIn the early 2000s, downtown Richmond was, well, downtown Richmond. It wasn\u2019t even safe to walk at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mariam didn\u2019t plan to go into the restaurant and culinary business until recently, when she decided to turn a personal passion into a vocation. \u201cWe like cooking and we like people\u2013we host a lot of gatherings,” she said.<\/p>\n

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Mariam Al Saiyd, owner of Sahara Grill and Cafe<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cDowntown Richmond is changing,\u201d she said, citing the number of young adults and professionals who are moving into the area. She also notes that VCU is changing as well. \u201cThere are a lot of international students from the Middle East, so why not take the opportunity?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her first restaurant, Al Kawthar, was located at Lombard and Broad street. When the building was sold, she moved her restaurant to Jackson Ward and changed its name from Al Kawther (“heavenly river”) to Sahara Cafe to attract more customers. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit hard for non-Arabs to pronounce Kawthar<\/em>, so I changed it to something more familiar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though \u201cRichmond is about tight-knit communities,\u201d\u00a0 it does pose a challenge for multicultural integration and exchange. Old habits die hard, and \u201cit\u2019s difficult to get new customers from Jackson Ward. I want to show people that Middle Eastern food is both healthy and delicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Food brings people together, it’s a great medium for people to get to know each other. That’s why she encourages curious customers to explore the wonders of Middle Eastern cuisine, even if it’s out of their comfort zone.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of our conversation, I ordered a falafel sandwich. \u201cAre you vegetarian or vegan?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cVegan,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWallah! [by God\u2019s name], she exclaimed. “I knew it from your haircut!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

My delicious dinner, courtesy of Mariam.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Fatema Al Darii Sahara Cafe and Grill caught my attention because the owner, Mariam Al Saiyd, is a native of Sudan, and I overheard her speaking with an Arabic accent. Frankly, I was surprised to find an Arab-run business in Jackson Ward. But, this also meant that the food is genuinely authentic. Mariam is Read more about Sahara in Jackson Ward<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3549,"featured_media":2409,"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":[85512,85395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-doing-business","category-neighbors"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2018\/05\/IMG_9339.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-CP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2407","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\/3549"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}