A beloved Findlay Market vendor is trying something new.
Dean’s Mediterranean Imports, a purveyor of goods and imports from all over the Middle East, is expanding to a full-service restaurant in Northside. The first day of service is March 10. The news comes as Dean’s celebrates 40 years of business at their current Findlay Market location in Over-the-Rhine. Lebanese immigrant Dean Zaidan opened the shop just below his apartment in 1986.
The new restaurant, titled Dean’s Mediterranean Table, will serve Middle Eastern staples—like falafel, baba ghanouj and chicken shawarma—crafted from Zaidan family recipes, and each dish will use the same ingredients people have been enjoying from Dean’s for the past four decades.
Kate Zaidan inside Dean’s Mediterranean Table. | Photo provided by Kate Zaidan
For owner Kate Zaidan, who took over the shop from her father almost a decade ago, the current store doesn’t have the capacity to do everything she wants to pursue.
“(Dean’s) is home for me. I grew up in the store. But there are things that I want to do with our ingredients that I felt like we don’t have the space for,” she said. “I had a kid then went on maternity leave and said ‘You know what, if the store doesn’t collapse while I’m gone, I’m going to open a new business.’”
She started seriously pursuing the idea in 2021, then found the future home of the Northside restaurant on the corner of Hamilton Avenue and Cosby Street. Five years of construction later, Dean’s Mediterranean Table is finally open for business.
It’s a big move for the store that essentially put Middle Eastern food on the map for Cincinnati. When the shop opened at Findlay Market 40 years ago, culinary delights we take for granted now—like pita bread, hummus and tabbouleh—were scarcely found anywhere in the Queen City area.
Dean Zaidan grew up in Lebanon and comes from a family of coffee and nut roasters. He met his wife, Cheryl, shortly after he emigrated from the country at the height of the Lebanese Civil War to settle in Cincinnati.
“My mom brought him down to Findlay Market to buy some goetta, and he fell in love with the place,” she said. “That style of shopping, where you get to know your purveyors and interact with people, felt really familiar to him. The community-focused style of shopping really drew him to opening at the market.”
But back then, Findlay Market was only open Wednesdays and Saturdays. Zaidan needed a full-time job, so he looked to his ancestors and opened Dean’s as a place to buy roasted nuts. Over time, it grew and became the one-stop shop for any Middle Eastern ingredients in the Cincinnati area.
When Kate signed on to run the store, it became even more popular thanks to the addition of their lunch menu. Well-known for their pita wraps, flatbreads and falafel, over half of business at Dean’s is now their hungry customers pursuing a cheap and delicious lunch option.
Grilled dates at Dean’s Mediterranean Table. | Photo provided by Kate Zaidan
The restaurant version of Dean’s will still have all those items, but feature an expanded menu with several different appetizers and entrees, often with a small plate mezze styling.
Take, for example, the grilled dates, which are prepared with hawaij butter—a Yemeni spice blend of cumin, turmeric and cinnamon—and served on a pillow of orange-scented ricotta. Or the halloumi, a Cypriot cheese that’s fried in aleppo, drizzled with hot honey and topped with smoky, sun-dried pepper.
There’s also plenty of larger platters, several of which are under $15, all sporting various meats and vegetables over top of the Zaidans’ recipe for Lebanese rice—a mix of sauteed vermicelli noodles, basmati rice, lemons and plenty of olive oil, which has become such a staple at their family gatherings that “at every big celebration, no meal with my family is complete without it.”
In addition, the restaurant will have a robust menu of Turkish and Yemeni coffee, and several classes and events will be hosted to showcase all the flavors of the Middle East.
“I am at my best and happiest when I’m interacting with customers and sharing recipes … it’s my absolute favorite part of the job,” she said. “We actually soft-launched a series of classes in December. I did a class on the Mediterranean diet, we had classes on Moroccan food. They were already a huge hit.”
The view inside Dean’s Mediterranean Table. | Photo provided by Kate Zaidan
The new Dean’s will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It will have a limited number of seats— just 25 spots indoors and 25 outdoors, which fits into Kate’s goal to have the restaurant produce high-quality food that still feels like home cooking.
“I’ve got the advantage of having a global pantry stocked with 40 years of experience of high-end specialty retail from around the world,” she said. “I’ve always said our store carries the best products in the world. Now we get to cook with the best products in the world.”
For Kate, who’s not only carrying on her family’s legacy but expanding upon it, opening the new restaurant is fulfilling “a craving to put my own spin on things.”
“It feels really great to know that this immigrant story with my dad coming here and making a go at starting a business is going to continue, and it will for years to come,” she said. “To leave an imprint on the culinary scene in Cincinnati … that feels like I’m doing what I set out to do in the very beginning.”
Tentative hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, subject to change. For more information, visit their website.
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Dining and Cooking