Mid East Eats — a preferred falafel pop-up turned non-public dinner service — is now open as a fast-casual vacation spot for homestyle Palestinian delicacies with an L.A. edge. It’s additionally the primary legally permitted dwelling kitchen in Watts.
Sumer and Andrew Durkee’s almost 700-square-foot dwelling on Grape Road has a white banner stretched throughout the entrance gate, with blown-up images of pita wraps, rice bowls, tacos and nachos topped with falafel. Enter the entrance yard, outfitted with a couple of tables, and possibly one of many dwelling cooks will greet you, in the event that they’re not busy wrapping burritos or throwing meat on a grill. Enterprise has kicked up for the reason that Durkees relaunched Mid East Eats three weeks in the past.
The restaurant initially started as a non-public dinner service in February, when Sumer and Andrew provided Palestinian feasts in a adorned tent on their entrance garden. For the July 12 opening, the pair added halal hen and beef shawarma to their largely vegan menu — assume fast-casual meals like Shawacos (corn tortillas stuffed with shawarma, cilantro-lime hummus and feta) alongside dishes just like the El Jifnawi falafel wrap, named after Sumer’s father’s Palestinian village, and the West Financial institution burrito, with contemporary fries just like the wraps served by avenue distributors in Ramallah and Jerusalem.
From the ages of 9 to 12, Sumer and her household lived in Jifna — a village outdoors the West Financial institution metropolis of Ramallah, the place she and her brother went to highschool. The Maryland native remembers dwelling by means of the Second Intifada, a Palestinian rebellion towards Israeli navy occupation, which started in 2000.
Mid East Eats co-owner Sumer Durkee lived within the West Financial institution from age 9 to 12.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Occasions)
“My brother and I saw a lot of terrible things just by crossing the checkpoint to get to school in the city,” Durkee mentioned. “When they would close the checkpoints, we’d have to travel over the hills. … We’ve been shot at.”
For Durkee, having the ability to serve Palestinian meals in L.A., generally to native Palestinians, is bittersweet. As a complete technology of Palestinian youngsters undergo irreversible harm from hunger and malnutrition, Durkee grapples along with her position and platform as an owner-operator of a Palestinian restaurant. Every week after reopening Mid East Eats, she introduced that she would cease posting photos of her restaurant’s meals on Instagram till Israel ended its blockade of meals assist into Gaza.
“It feels insensitive to hold a grand opening during these times, but the time has come to open consistent business hours. Mid East Eats is our only source of income,” learn an Instagram put up from the restaurant. “Our grand opening is dedicated to all oppressed communities. We need each other more than ever now.”
Earlier than it opened as a microenterpise dwelling kitchen operation (MEHKO) in Feburary, Mid East Eats acquired its begin as a pop-up final summer time. The Durkees served dishes like falafel tacos at occasions throughout L.A., generally as much as 5 per week. It’s the identical meals they now serve in Watts, the place many residents stay greater than half a mile from the closest grocery store, based on the U.S. Division of Agriculture’s Meals Entry Analysis Atlas.
Mid East Eats is the primary legally permitted dwelling kitchen in Watts.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Occasions)
“I wanted to make food more accessible to our neighborhood — Watts is a bit of a food desert,” mentioned Sumer, whose bubbly character and heat hospitality has helped the restaurant preserve a stream of consumers. “There’s a lot of fast food … there’s no Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Palestinian food.”
Mid East Eats is among the larger L.A. space’s roughly 150 MEHKOs, due to a state program that was handed in 2018 and was applied in L.A. County final November. It permits residents to prepare dinner and promote meals out of their properties and plans to subsidize 1,000 dwelling companies by means of June 2026. MEHKOs are restricted to serving as much as 30 meals per day and 90 meals per week, with not more than $100,000 annual product sales.
Since its pop-up days, a standard thread all through the Durkees’ enterprise has been advocacy for Gaza. Lots of the pop-ups Mid East Eats attended have been fundraisers for households in Gaza, together with different causes corresponding to native wildfire reduction. The restaurant’s reopening, which featured a couple of native distributors, raised cash for 2 local people organizations and $100 for a household in Gaza. On the final weekend of July, Mid East Eats fundraised with gross sales of its West Financial institution burrito, donating $400 to 2 different households in Gaza.
“We [donate] direct to families that are unable or too far away from aid distribution,” Sumer mentioned. “Unfortunately, they have to buy food at inflated prices, so that’s why I try to focus on rotating families.”
Sumer Durkee of Mid East Eats smashes contemporary falafel right into a pita.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Occasions)
Mid East Eats is finest identified for its herbaceous falafel, which Sumer stuffs with mint, cilantro and parsley. Whereas she doesn’t use a precise household recipe, Sumer mentioned that it “comes from my soul,” and tastes just like the falafel her aunt would make. She and Andrew additionally take delight in cooking with olive oil made by a Palestinian household in Backyard Grove.
Vanessa Guerra, a loyal buyer who found Mid East Eats by means of a fundraising falafel-making class the Durkees held final yr, has no drawback driving from her dwelling in Northridge to Watts for falafel.
“They’re amazing people — if someone needs help, they’re there to help you,” mentioned Guerra, whose great-grandfather is Palestinian, of the Durkees. “I’m not just paying for the food. I’m paying for the service, everything. … It’s very home-like. It’s like going to your mom’s house.”
Open the Durkees’ entrance gate to search out tomato vegetation rising alongside the fence. To the left is one other desk accompanied by fig and lime timber. Subsequent to the home, a younger watermelon plant, and in entrance of it, the colourful tent the place the couple previously held non-public dinners for $95 per individual.
“I really wanted to do the Palestinian experience — I wanted people to come over, feel like they’re at home, come sit on the ground,” Sumer mentioned. “Back in the village, we would sit on the floor and eat. Most modern-day Palestinians don’t do that anymore, but we did … I wanted to have that vibe, and I wanted to cook traditional food.”
The entrance yard eating space at Mid East Eats.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Occasions)
Although the Durkees have paused the non-public dinners till mid-August to deal with their fast-casual service, it stays a core side of Mid East Eats, based on Sumer. Now, for $195 per individual, diners will sit contained in the tent on colourful cushions round a round picket desk, feasting on a number of mezze and mint lemonade adopted by Sumer’s maqlubeh, or aromatic rice flipped the wrong way up, revealing a layer of eggplant, cauliflower and tomatoes.
“When we do the private dinners, what I really focus on is the foods that we really eat back home — the stuffed grape leaves, stuffed cabbage, stuffed zucchini,” Sumer mentioned. “It’s important to me to preserve my culture through food.”
The Durkees proceed to help each households in Gaza and their Watts neighbors nonetheless they’ll — which, after the reopening, most frequently manifests as falafel wraps and forearm-length shawarma burritos bursting with garlic toum, tahini and Andrew’s home made jalapeño sauce.
“Of course I’m gonna fight for Palestinian liberation. These are my people,” Sumer mentioned. “I want to bring people here, and I want them to come and experience that Palestinian hospitality, and that is important to me — to show people that we are humans.”
Mid East Eats is open in Watts on Thursday by means of Sunday from midday to 9 p.m.
9613 Grape St., Los Angeles, mideasteats.com
