New multicultural restaurant opens in historic Kansas City space
At his new restaurant on 39th Street, Maher Chebaro blurs the lines between Mexican and Lebanese cuisine.
He doesn’t like the word “fusion.” Partly because many Mexican dishes were inspired by Moorish culture, sometimes intersecting and other times divulging, and he’s not making his dishes to be ridiculous Frankenstein hybrids.
They’re already complementary, Maher figures.
That said, it’s easy to spot what’s typically considered Mexican and what’s Middle Eastern. His menu includes tacos (Mexican) with halloumi cheese (Middle Eastern), lamb hashwe (Middle Eastern) burritos (Mexican), and samke harra (Middle Eastern) mole (Mexican).
Why serve the crossover dishes rather than one or the other? “It’s what I like to eat,” Maher said.
Beirut Taco opened at 3904 Bell St. this week, welcoming customers into the former d’Bronx space.
Most recently, it housed Zhoug Mediterranean. But that restaurant closed months ago, standing in a line of similar concepts.
Maher’s restaurant may sound strange to some — this might be the first Mexican-Middle Eastern spot in the area, after all — but it’s tried and true as far as he’s concerned.
His Mexican-Lebanese restaurant El Cedro in Brooklyn has done well, so he figured he’d try it in Kansas City, where his restaurant career started.
“It’s like full circle,” he said. “I started here, and I ended up here.”
Maher and his brother, Marwan Chebaro, have been known in the Kansas City food scene since the ‘80s with concepts like Cafe Rumi and Tribal Grill. Later Maher moved away, and Marwan began working in corporate dining.
Just last year, the brothers opened Lebanese restaurant Nour’s at 3855 Warwick Blvd. It’s named after Marwan’s late daughter.
The duo have a restaurant group together and are hoping to do more concepts in the future — but they’re keeping things tight at the two restaurants for now.
Maher said he’s always playing with his menus so he never gets bored, but for now it contains several tacos, burritos, and plates.
Chiles el Sultan ($22) is a poblano filled with lamb, rice, raisins, almonds and eggplant-chihuahua bechamel sauce. Shawarma steak arrachera ($28) has skirt steak green rice, tomato-morita sauce, caramelized onions and nopales.
Pescado tacos ($14 for two) have zaatar-crusted cod, lime-cilantro slaw and harissa mayonnaise. The halloumi queso tacos ($12 for two) have seared halloumi cheese and seasonal fruit salsa.
A few desserts are on the menu, too, including rice pudding ($10) and saffron cardamom tres leches ($12).
Fairway Creamery created specialty ice cream flavors for Beirut Taco, like saffron pistachio and date tahini. It’s $3.50 a scoop.
“I’m not trying to bring crazy things left and right,” he said. “Everything I do, I try to find a base to it.”
The space has echoes of its former life as Zhoug Mediterranean. Maher kept the benches and general layout the same but added colorful murals, updated the bar and swapped out the tiling.
Zhoug closed its 39th Street spot in November after less than a year there. It still has a location in Lenexa at 16728 City Center Drive.
This story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 12:20 PM.