Vienna is slated to welcome a new, family-owned destination for Yemeni cuisine over the next few months.
Sheeba Restaurant, a franchise offering both Yemeni and Mediterranean cuisine, is currently preparing to open at 111 Church Street NW, where it’ll offer a variety of specialties, including sandwiches, salads, shawarma platters, all-day shak-shookah and spreads like hummus and baba ghanouj.
The forthcoming restaurant will be Sheeba’s first step into the D.C. area, following its founding in early-2000s Dearborn, Michigan — a place home to the United States’ first Arab-American majority city.
Today, it has four Michigan locations and a fifth outpost in New York City, offering what Vienna franchisee Nadir Naimi likes to call “casual fine dining.”
“That’s more of the description that I use, because a lot of aspects of traditional fine dining are incompatible with Eastern hospitality, and it actually obscures its authenticity,” Naimi said. “So, we want to take some of these aspects from traditional fine dining and use it to elevate the culinary experience, showcasing Arabian culinary culture, now, in a comfortable, elegant environment.”
Sheeba Restaurant is replacing a vacancy left by French restaurant Le Bistro, which has closed after its owners reportedly sold the 2,200-square-foot space.
The restaurant is 26-year-old Naimi’s first business venture. He is joined by his uncle, Mohamad “Izzy” Alkibsi, hailing from a family of local restaurateurs who previously owned Alf Laylah in Chantilly and Babalu in Tysons.
For months, Naimi sought to open an original restaurant, but shifted gears after meeting with Sheeba’s founder, Ismael Aljahmi.
“I messaged my cousin who lives in Dearborn, and her husband apparently has been close friends with [Aljahmi] for years,” Naimi said. “So, he scheduled a meeting with the four of us, and we all met in Michigan. Turns out, he’s a cool guy.”
In his new dining room, Naimi told FFXnow he looks forward to offering authentic dishes like fahsah, a Yemeni stew made with shredded lamb and potatoes, served up “bubbling hot” in a clay bowl with clay oven bread.
Another favorite is samboosa, a fried dough appetizer that comes stuffed with fillings like cheese, vegetables or meat.
Growing up in Vienna as a first-generation immigrant, Naimi said all his jobs as a teenager were in hospitality. His family was “always in and out of restaurants.” That changed, he said, following the death of a family member, culminating in the closure of their last family business in 2019.
“Food is inseparable from Arabian culture and Middle Eastern culture in general,” Naimi said. “Food service and the hospitality associated with it is really integral in my culture, so I missed it when it was gone, and I wanted to bring that back to my family.”
Through Sheeba, Naimi aspires to share his family’s culture with his hometown and bring a new, more upscale experience to the region, all while “lower[ing] the barriers” to fine dining.
“It’s going to be an elevated experience,” Naimi said. “It is going to be high-quality food, and for that reason, it is more into the fine dining range. But, I don’t want to price people out.”
The new eatery has yet to set an opening date, but it is expected to open sometime before mid-summer.
Photo 2 via Izzy Alkibsi/Facebook
