After a three-year wait, Dean’s Mediterranean Imports is set to open its new full-service restaurant and retail shop in Northside. Owner Kate Zaidan said the grand opening will take place March 10. In the meantime, she and her team are hosting a series of dinners and classes in preparation.
The new location gives Zaidan a chance to prepare meals with the imported products she sells both here and at Dean’s original Findlay Market location, which will remain open.
Zadain said the new breakfast, lunch and dinner spot will have 25 seats in addition to patio seating. The plan is to stay open for dinner until 8 p.m. on weekdays and 10 p.m. on weekends. “It will be sort of an all-day cafe,” she said. Zaidan also plans to offer Yemeni coffee service throughout the day.
“I wanted to have a place where we could take all of the amazing products at the store and put them in context,” she said.
The menu is set to include fatteh, an Egyptian layered dish of toasted pita bread, warm, spiced chickpeas, house-made mint yogurt and warm butter, as well as roast chicken shawarma, falafel, kefta kebabs, and many other items. Zaidan will also offer a “sauce station” where customers can top sandwiches or entrees with a selection of Middle Eastern-style sauces.
Zaidan’s Lebanese-born father, Dean Zaidan, 70, opened the original Dean’s at Findlay Market in 1985. The new location will boast a full menu, breakfast, lunch and dinner service, coffee and a retail space. When asked if her father would be helping out, Zaidan said he is now “fully retired.”
Zaidan announced she would open a sister location to her shop, which she now owns, three years ago, knowing it would take some time to get it right. “It was a soup-to-nuts project,” she said, adding that the building lacked an HVAC system and needed several upgrades. She leased the building from Northsiders Engaged in Sustainable Transformation, a non-profit Northside development company, and received help from the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, which stabilized the building. She also received grant funding from the city of Cincinnati.
For more information of dinner events and classes at Dean’s Northside location, visit mediterranean-imports.com.
Dining and Cooking