Big Daddy Shawarma is scheduled to debut in Studio City next month at the corner of Ventura and Laurel Canyon. This is slated to be the concept’s first store, with additional locations throughout California to follow. The flagship restaurant will seat around 77 people inside and another 14 outside. During its soft launch it will offer free beef shawarma.
“We’re going to open the first store in Laurel Canyon, and then we’re looking for additional locations in Thousand Oaks, Calabasas, and Malibu,” says owner Gil Hamias.
The restaurant will offer casual, grab-and-go service during the day with a family-style, sit down dining experience in the evenings. The eventual Malibu outpost, on the other hand, will be a formal sit-down restaurant.
“After the third spot opens we’re planning to franchise. We’ll give people the option to buy markets like San Diego and San Francisco,” shares Hamias.
Big Daddy Shawarma will also cater to the late night crowd on Thursday and Saturday nights, during which times it will be open after midnight. Since they are kosher, they’ll be closed on Friday evenings.
“Laurel Canyon doesn’t have our type of restaurant. We’ve created a more Turkish style shawarma, cooked over Red Lava Rock charcoal and giving it a much different flavor. Also, all of our spices are specially delivered from Israel. We did a couple of tests and everybody that tried it loved it,” Hamias added.
The restaurant will offer online ordering through Toast and will also deliver.
