40-Year-Old Halal Butcher Lebanese Meat Market Has Is a Community Hub in Chicago’s Albany Park | Eater Chicago
"A longtime neighborhood butcher that has operated since 1984 and provides zabiha halal-certified lamb, goat, beef, and chicken, this shop functions as a community cornerstone where familiarity and cross-cultural connection are central. Customers come from a wide range of origins — Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Korea, Algeria, Morocco, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, and El Salvador — and regulars include couples who have been coming for over a decade; “I’ve got customers who, after 30 years, they’re still coming,” he says, and he recalls, “Now those children are all grown up and they’re bringing their own kids here.” Independent Chicago chef Sabrina Beydoun, who is also from Lebanon, first found out about the shop from grocers at Feyrous Pastries and Groceries: “I was at Feyrous for kibbeh andmolokhia, and I was asking around for a good halal butcher shop,” Beydoun recalls. She made it her go-to spot for lamb not only for quality but because “the relationships she built there and how the meat being zabiha halal helped make her events more accessible to the Muslim community.” Beydoun adds fondly, “He reminds me of a typical Arab Amo [uncle] who’s just going to tease you,” she says, laughing. “But that’s an invitation to build relationships, which are earned over time.” The shop emphasizes hands-on, whole-animal butchery rather than pre-packaged supermarket fare: “In a butcher shop you have only a few selections,” Faraj says, while “in a supermarket, you have a lot of selections but they’re all pre-packed. Nothing is fresh. Everything is frozen.” On Mondays he receives fresh, hand-slaughtered animals that he breaks down in-house; nothing is pre-ground, and if you request ground meat, “they grind it by hand right in front of you.” There’s no display cooler — customers watch their meat being prepared and handed to them — and the shop can source uncommon parts on request (the narrator once got lamb tail fat for a Gaza Kitchen kebab recipe), and chefs ask for extra fat trimmings to render shelf-stable tallow. Relationships with farmers matter: “The farmer who I get my lamb and sheep from[now], I’ve known this guy since when we first opened,” and Faraj still maintains ties to Detroit halal slaughterhouses though he notes, “Chicago is the number one hub of butcher shops in America.” He is candid about current challenges: “There’s an old saying. ‘Too many chefs in the kitchen.’ Everybody wants to be boss, but you can’t do that. You have to get your hands dirty,” and he acknowledges pandemic-era pressures and changing buying habits: “Before, they would come in, they would say, ‘Give me an animal.’ Now, they say a whole animal is too much money.” For newcomers intimidated by whole-animal butchery, the shop aims to educate and welcome questions: “With us, we don’t mind the questions, you know. We’re happy to help.” As Faraj puts it about the role of personal service, “When the customers come in, if they don’t see my face or see my brother in the store, they’re not comfortable,” he says. “It’s about the relationship. Because most times, I can know what they need before they speak their mind.”" - Nylah Iqbal Muhammad
