Abdul Qazi opened his Afghan restaurant Kabul House on September 14, 2001–what might seem like bad timing for any restaurant to debut. A little more than a year later, business is so good that he’s about to open a second location.
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In mid-2001, Qazi decided to expand. He thought his growing customer base could support a larger operation, and he wanted to be able to offer more convenient parking. He found a space on Dempster in Skokie that had previously been occupied by a Thai restaurant serving kosher food. As soon as he signed his new lease, Qazi posted a notice on the door of his Evanston place announcing the move, then spent three weeks fixing up his new digs.
That month restaurants everywhere were suffering from post-9/11 fallout. Making matters more uncertain, the local Afghan community had never patronized Qazi’s previous establishment; most Afghan families, says Qazi, can’t afford or aren’t interested in going out for food they regularly cook in their own homes. He didn’t know what to expect, but the sign he’d left at the old location paid off: after a few slow days, business began to pick up.
Everything is homemade, from the yogurt to Persian ice cream and firnee, an Afghan pudding, the last two flavored with rosewater and cardamom. “I buy fresh vegetables and zabiha halal meat [slaughtered according to Islamic law] daily and prepare all of our food from scratch every day,” says Qazi. “I don’t use canned food or anything frozen, and people tell me they can taste the difference.”
