Middle Eastern Café and Sweets moving downtown to Broad Street
The restaurant’s new name will be Middle Eastern Grill.
The Broad Street restaurant line-up will get another new player during the first quarter of 2018 as Tim Khateeb is making plans to move the Middle Eastern Café and Sweets to Broad Street.
Khateeb has been at 430 Shorter Ave. for about two years and will be moving to much larger space in the 425 Broad St. building that was previously home to the Peach Palace.
“I like that restaurant, it’s bigger and more fancy and everybody’s going downtown now,” Khateeb said.
He’s not sure exactly when the move will take place but he is sure that the name will change to Middle Eastern Grill.
“Everybody thinks we are sweets, they don’t know we are a full-service restaurant,” Khateeb said. “They come in for sweets and see our menu and get shocked.”
The restaurant will continue to open at 10 a.m. but Khateeb said he’s not sure about his closing hours after the move is completed. Currently the restaurant closes at 9 p.m. but Khateeb said he could stay open a little later downtown.
Another factor that Khateeb is sure of is the need for a few additional employees.
He said he anticipated that he’ll need to bring on at least three more employees.
The relocation of the Middle Eastern Café will mark the second restaurant of that genre to open in downtown Rome.
Owners of the Jerusalem Grill, 223 Turner McCall Blvd., are putting the finishing touches on their Jerusalem Express in the former Partridge Restaurant, 330 Broad St.
Employees of the Jerusalem Grill, which will remain open, said they expect the new Jerusalem Express downtown to be open in less than two weeks.