Farid Azzeh, the man who helped put Middle Eastern fare on KC’s map, has died
Farid Azzeh, the founder of Jerusalem Café and a pioneer of Middle Eastern cuisine in Kansas City, died August 18 after a two-year battle with cancer and liver disease. He was 66.
He leaves behind his wife, Souhair, with whom he would have celebrated 38 years of marriage Friday, and three sons — Dennis, Adam, and Eddy.
Azzeh also leaves behind an unmatched legacy of Middle Eastern restaurants in the Kansas City area. His influence can be found not just in the three Jerusalem Café locations still run by his sons Dennis and Adam, but in a number of other restaurants that trace their roots to him. Azzeh opened both KC Smoke Burgers and Jerusalem Bakery (now Mediterranean Market), later selling the businesses to employees. The owners of Aladdin’s Café on 39th Street worked for Azzeh in Lawrence and later bought that location from him. The founder of Holy Land Café got his start at Jerusalem Café.
His nephews, Fouad and Firas Haha, run Haha’s Pizza Hub and Haha’s Kebab and Shawarma — ventures they say would not exist without Azzeh’s guidance.
“We learned A to Z from him,” Fouad said. “Without him we wouldn’t be in the food industry. He’s a legend to us. He wasn’t just an uncle. He was a father figure, a friend, a boss. All at once.”
Azzeh made his first mark on Kansas City’s food scene in 1989, when he opened the Westport Sizzler at 431 Westport Road.
“It was five tables with a food counter inside, and he would grill on the sidewalk outside,” Dennis said. “It was just him and my mom working, and me in a car seat under one of the booths. He served charbroiled kebabs and hot dogs and other things.”
Within a year, Azzeh saw that customers preferred his Mediterranean menu items. He renamed the restaurant Jerusalem Café and leaned into dishes like falafel, baba ganoush, gyros, and tabbouleh salad.
It was one of Kansas City’s first Middle Eastern restaurants, introducing flavors that were unfamiliar to many diners. It also quickly earned a following among vegetarians at a time when few local menus had much in the way of meatless options. The decor was bare-bones, but the prices were reasonable and the portions were generous. Within a year, Azzeh expanded into the space next door.
Over the next two decades, he opened Jerusalem Café locations in downtown Kansas City, Overland Park, Oak Park Mall, 39th Street, Baldwin City, Lawrence, and even Alabama. Though those outposts eventually closed or changed hands, the original location remained a fixture, its food truck a late-night beacon for a generation of Westport bargoers.
Azzeh was born and raised in Palestine and came to the U.S. in 1972. He studied at Penn Valley Community College, living with an uncle who had moved to Kansas City in the 1960s to work for Burns & McDonnell. Azzeh went on to earn an engineering degree from the University of Missouri–Rolla. After working six years as an engineer in Saudi Arabia, he returned to Kansas City in 1989 to look for work. Instead, he decided to pursue his dream of running a restaurant.
In 2019, Azzeh stepped back from day-to-day operations, turning management over to Dennis and Adam. They relocated Jerusalem Café a half-block down to 515 Westport Road, a larger space that was previously occupied by Qdoba. Today, they run Jerusalem Café locations in Westport, Independence and Mission, as well as multiple Chick-in Waffle restaurants.
Azzeh continued helping out at the restaurants until about a year ago, when his health worsened.
“Even toward the end, when he was at the restaurants, he was always the guy bussing tables or making sure the DoorDasher had water while they waited for their food,” Dennis said. “He was very humble like that, very hardworking. It’s a painful loss, but we’re going to carry on his legacy.”
The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City.
This story was originally published August 22, 2025 at 6:20 AM.
