From fatherhood to big families, a roundup of titles with area ties and regional authors./
Culinary chops with Yemeni spin in a convenience store setting
Behind the vivid trim and green lettering of Shebamz Grill, and the photos of a juicy salad and kebab on a lozenge-shaped sign, there’s no mistaking the lines of a former Stewart’s on Morton Avenue in Albany’s South End. The forecourt’s ample parking is constantly busy, the foot traffic proof of its usefulness in a neighborhood with few options for fresh food.
Shebamz Grill feels like a statement of the times: Part grocery store selling cat food, toilet paper, lottery tickets and soda; part deli with fresh sandwich fillings behind plexiglass screens where Boars’ Head deli meats and cheeses are sliced to order. It’s also part diner with egg sandwiches and fluffy pancakes fired up the length of a huge open griddle by two, sometimes three, short-order cooks in bright green tees. But it’s also part pandemic restaurant with shrimp and grits, New York strip steak, salmon over rice, and hearty chili boxed to go.
As an eatery, Shebamz is only missing tables and seats, which means takeout must be munched in cars or ferried home. Inside, it’s bright, tiled and impeccably clean. When a young child runs in and crouches by the glass checkout pointing to the candy, I notice the cleanliness of the floor.
Shebamz Grill faces Lincoln Park, where the Albany Housing Authority built “towers in the park” as part of a 1960s public housing project that paired superblocks with nearby open spaces. When they opened, a Times Union headline read, “Lofty apartments spring from slum,” but, as a design for vertical living, it failed to anticipate how families on
upper floors would be unable to supervise children on the playgrounds below, or, absent ground-floor bathroom facilities, that frequently vandalized elevators would find use as toilets. Since grocery stores select locations based on the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood, low-income areas like the South End experience food apartheid, the systemic lack of access to fresh, healthy food.
Shebamz Grill fills the lotto-soda-milksmoke quota of any corner store, perhaps with an unusually large selection of hookah pipes on display. But a made-toorder menu of spring mix, kale or arugula salads, protein-rich keto entrees and kebab gyros packed with shredded lettuce, tomato and spin sauce has broad all-day appeal — to the local community and those driving through. A large banner indicating they accept food stamps surely seals the deal.
The staff hail from Yemen and the Arabian islands (Yemen has some 200, I now know). Owner Khalil Fadah and general manager Naef Namer moved upstate from Manhattan and the Bronx, while chef Abdu Nagi arrived six months ago from Detroit, where he worked in catering and five-star fine dining, including the French-american restaurant Opus One. Though they know the team behind the Yemeni restaurant Sheba al-yemen on Central Avenue, it was other Yemeni friends — owners of a Sunoco gas station on Clinton Avenue and Quail Street — who encouraged their move. After a year of renovations, they opened in March, a week before the coronavirus shutdown.
We have decisions to make. Do we want Swiss, provolone or American, and will that be white or yellow American on the burger? Staff are polite and keen to get the orders right. The halal Shebamz burger, a surprisingly dense Angus beef patty, is topped with caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato, mayo and cheese and served with crispy, thick fries with soft, powdery middles. The chopped cheese is pressed panini-style until the Swiss cheese drips between layers of shaved beef; the seasoned chicken kebab is bundled in warm, plouffy flatbread like a catcher’s mitt. Nagi’s creamy chicken and potato chowder is as hearty and comforting as any but challenging when packaged in round foil-and-lid containers like the rest of the food. Better to get some quart tubs to go. Still, we walk out with a comforting feast of soup and handheld burgers and fries, chopped cheese, gyros and kebabs that collectively costs $35