Palestinian food truck operation Zayn & Co. has drawn a slew of fans around the city since debuting their Arabic coffee drinks (seriously, how good is that Pistachi-Oh?), as well as their teas, cold beverages and baked goods.
For the past few months, the truck has been a semi-permanent fixture at Digress Wine in College Park, but come early March, Zayn & Co. will open a charming little booth in the back patio of the popular neighborhood wine shop.
Jordan Badran, who runs Zayn & Co. along with his wife, Stephanie, and cousin Rani Khoury, says the collaboration will allow them to serve the community five or six days per week (compared to their current three-day schedule) while making their food truck available for private bookings and larger-scale events.
“It’s an exciting expansion for us and the neighborhood,” Badran says, adding that the booth will operate “as an extension of our existing coffee and culinary program.” That culinary program includes such fresh-baked wonders as za’atar focaccia, a spiced meat sfiha focaccia, spinach pies, cookies and rotating daily specials.
On Fridays, falafel will be featured, highlighting a family recipe passed down from Badran’s grandmother. That said, the trio are constantly refining and expanding their menu selections, so expect a continued evolution of the bill of fare as well as seasonal additions.
According to Badran, the food truck was always designed as a coffee shop on wheels rather than a traditional full-service food truck, but for larger events, they’ve been expanding their offerings to include traditional Palestinian dishes such as dawood basha, molokhia, mujaddara, maqluba, musakhan and more.
The good news is that many of those dishes will be offered as specials when Mashawi — the group’s newest food truck, serving street vendor-style eats including shawarma, falafel and smashburgers “with a twist” — rolls into the Digress parking lot next month as well.
“Mashawi will hold a weekly residency at Digress in addition to appearing at other familiar locations around town,” he says.
The full schedule will be announced soon on their socials.
And if that weren’t enough, Mini Zayn — a compact Japanese van that’s currently being converted into a mobile coffee bar and pop-up unit — will launch soon, giving the Badrans and Khoury even more flexibility for events and activations around the city.
“We’ve set out to build concepts that reflect our Palestinian-American heritage while delivering high-quality experiences,” says Badran, who firmly believes in the power that food and beverage can have in building bridges. “Free Palestine forever runs through my blood, and I just want people to understand the same without hatred towards our people, and others.”
Follow @zayn.and.co, @mashawi.orlando and @digresswine for all the latest.
