At two local IHOPs, Ramadan halal specials were so popular they’re staying on the menu

Mohammad Ashraf, proprietor of an IHOP franchise in Fullerton, watched with amazement what occurred throughout Ramadan this yr.

Automobiles typically double-parked in entrance of the chain restaurant earlier than daybreak, as members of the Muslim group assembled, hoping to have halal rooster tenders or turkey-bacon omelets as their suhoor meal earlier than fasting for the day.

A basic supervisor frantically took orders exterior with a pen and paper in an effort to make sure everybody could possibly be served earlier than dawn. Some, discovering no obtainable tables, would eat out of styrofoam containers whereas sitting on the curb. The commotion this yr made one factor clear to Ashraf, who’s Muslim: his annual Ramadan-only menu of halal specials must keep, year-round.

“Persons are overwhelmed by the truth that they will go to an IHOP restaurant and eat halal meals,” he stated. “That’s 90% of the feedback they make.”

Pork is just not halal, and different animals, resembling rooster, beef and lamb, have to be slaughtered underneath certified-halal requirements such because the humane slitting of the throat. Ashraf by no means had an curiosity in bacon himself, however it’s occupied his ideas since 2008. That yr, the IHOP franchisee determined it was time to service his household and his group’s wants, and promote halal-certified turkey bacon at his first restaurant through the Islamic holy month, which ended this yr on Might 1. He says it took months for the IHOP company workplace to approve its sale on the Fullerton outpost, together with the choice for halal sausage. (IHOP’s central workplaces didn’t reply to a request for remark for this story.)

A menu of halal specials, or meals permissible underneath Islamic regulation, launched throughout Ramadan in 2009, and he additionally determined to open earlier for these trying to dine earlier than dawn. Enterprise was sluggish at first: one or two tables ordered every pre-dawn morning, however the next Ramadan, extra company had been trickling in.

Ashraf’s halal IHOP menu turned extra in style pre-pandemic, when he and his crew started providing a suhoor buffet to assist feed company earlier than dawn. This yr, along with reprising the buffet, they added a tent for out of doors seating and determined to run the restaurant for twenty-four hours over the last two weekends of Ramadan.

By 2022, word-of-mouth helped the menu achieve much more recognition, to the purpose that he prolonged a number of the objects to his Tujunga location, which will even now run them year-round. In Tujunga, they’d company drive from Modesto. In Fullerton, diners stated they’d traveled from Victorville and Palm Springs.

When the realtor-turned-restaurateur bought the Fullerton IHOP in 2006, he introduced his personal meats bought from Diamond Bar’s Aljibani Halal Meats, and instructed his cooks on how you can put together them only for him — and how you can keep away from cross-contamination with the restaurant’s pork merchandise; each areas now keep separate fridges, cabinets, fryers and griddles for halal meats and non-pork objects.

Ultimately his private stash served his youngsters on their visits, after which his mates.

“Once they had been youthful, they might go to eating places with their mates, however their decisions had been restricted,” Ashraf stated. “‘How come they will eat the meat and I can’t?’ There have been a couple of halal [chain] eating places again within the day, however aside from that, our decisions can be Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Iranian. Once they would come to IHOP they might eat pancakes, waffles, vegetarian issues.”

He realized there was greater than an instantaneous demand for providing halal meats — there was an untapped market.

In accordance with the Census Coverage Advocacy Community, roughly 1 million Muslims dwell in California; the Islamic Society of Orange County is among the largest Muslim group facilities within the nation.

The expansion for Ashraf has largely been doable by means of in-person advertising visits to native mosques, first in Orange County, now in Los Angeles, which have been primarily carried out by his basic supervisor: Mariana Macias. Raised Catholic, she started working with Ashraf in 2006, and stated she was unaware of Islamic observe or halal necessities, however discovered extra as she dropped off fliers promoting the Fullerton IHOP’s halal meats in mosques and at Muslim scholar applications.

Now, Macias stated, she looks like a part of the group.

“At first the toughest half to do, as a non-Muslim particular person, was go to a mosque — I didn’t know what to do,” she stated. “You need to take off your footwear, it’s important to be lined up in abaya, some locations are stricter; women and men undergo a separate door. All that was new for me, however the entire Muslim group is so welcoming, even when you’re a non-Muslim particular person.”

A few of Ashraf’s Fullerton halal dishes might quickly maker their strategy to the Tujunga location, together with the halal turkey bacon and the meat burger patty.

(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Occasions)

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Whereas Macias doesn’t observe Islam, she orders off the halal menus repeatedly, saying it tastes higher — particularly the rooster, which she loves in sandwich and buffalo-tenders type.

Additionally discovered at Dave’s Scorching Rooster

Ashraf’s workers aren’t the one ones preferring the style of halal meat. Dave’s Scorching Rooster has bought halal rooster tenders because it launched as a pop-up in an East Hollywood parking zone in 2017. In accordance with co-founder Arman Oganesyan, spiritual observe didn’t inspire the choice — to the 4 Dave’s founders, the halal tenders had been merely a greater product.

“We realized that any model of halal was significantly better: Rooster would come out of the field rather more tender, rather more juicy,” Oganesyan stated. “We had a brining course of, and we needed to do lots much less of our brining course of as a result of the rooster was really easy to work with.”

At the moment Dave’s operates greater than 60 shops; by the top of the yr, they need to have roughly 100; some are franchises, some are company-owned, and all are halal-certified. Whereas halal rooster is barely costlier — roughly 10 cents extra per pound for Dave’s — the founders really feel each the flavour and the chance to achieve a wider market, halal diners, is greater than value the price.

“The suggestions is at all times actually good, and it’s form of stunning to us that extra individuals are not utilizing halal,” Oganesyan stated. “It’s not laborious to get.”

Possibly, he stated, that is simply the beginning. Ashraf stated he hopes so too, however acknowledges it’s been an extended highway to get right here.

“Me being Muslim, I perceive the idea, and I pushed for it,” Ashraf stated. “Different individuals are not going to have the persistence for it; when you’re not enthusiastic about it, how lengthy are you going to combat for it? I’ve been attempting since 2008.”

Ashraf hopes so as to add new, licensed objects to each of his eating places in an effort to supply simply as a lot comfort for patrons who eat halal meals as those that don’t.