Chip D.
Yelp
I don't know of a better Middle Eastern market than Fattal's. It has one real competitor--one peer--Nouri's, just down the street. The two stores are the pillars of the South Paterson business community. They led the revitalization of the whole district, which is really booming today. Both started very small, as first-rate bakeries; both have grown, over the years, into large, first-rate full-service Middle Eastern markets. Between the two stores, you can find anything you might want in terms of Middle Eastern baked goods, foods, spices, meats, even jewelry.
Fattal's got its start in 1968, Nouri's a decade later. I love both stores very much, and will review Nouri's another day. Members of my family have been supportive, enthusiastic customers of both stores from the very beginning. Today I want to focus on Fattal's--a wonderful, family-run store (now in its third-generation as a family business, I believe).
Fattal's has undergone a major expansion and renovation in the past year. It's now a large store with a bright, open, airy, modern feel. Curved counters in the pastry department and the meat department contribute an appealingly flowing feel to the store. It is clean. The staff is helpful and friendly. I pop into Fattal's often.
Fattal's bread is really terrific. I usually buy their basic Syrian bread, sometimes their extra-thick loaves, and from time to time try all of their different varieties (whole wheat, multi-grain, poppy-and-onion, etc.) Whatever I buy, I know it will be flavorful and fresh.
Let me take you back to the beginning, because my Mom discovered Michael Fattal and his terrific bread right at the start, in 1968. My mom had the kind of personality where she would talk to everyone she met; she wanted to know their stories. (I'm more reserved.) Michael Fattal--looking weary but happy--was a one-man operation at the start, selling bread he'd just made. And if you got to his little store late in the day and he'd sold all the bread he'd made that day, you were out-of-luck. But our family just loved his bread. My Mom would say it tasted like the bread her Mother had made. And we were even more thrilled when he began baking pastries as well. No one made better baklava. And he would tell my Mom his story, how he'd arrived from Syria with no money, had taken any work he could find, just to survive (working in a shoe factory, if I remember correctly) and baking in his spare time. He told my Mom he was from Aleppo. My Mom said, "That's where my parents were from; we must be related."
One time my Mom bought all of the baklava he had made, put it into a cardboard box, and mailed it to my older brother, who was away at college back then in the late 1960s. The box got damaged in the mail, and the baklava was ruined. When we tried to buy more baklava, Michael Fattal was genuinely distraught, saying: "You mailed the baklava I made? You let it get ruined in the mail? I don't have any more baklava to sell. I don't know when I'll have more. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to make that baklava?" And he told my Mom, in Arabic, just how long it took to make such good baklava. And boy! He did not leave out a step. My Mom left the shop crestfallen, telling my sister and me, "He has the soul of an artist. He works harder than you can ever imagine, getting very little sleep, to bake such fine baklava. No one works harder than that man. I think he raised the bees to make the honey he used in that baklava. I'm not sure if he'll ever sell us baklava again, since we let that big batch get ruined in the mail." But the next time we went to see him, Michael Fattal had come up with a solution. He'd somehow found a large metal cannister--the kind that movie theaters used to store motion-picture film--which he said would protect his baklava if we ever wanted to mail more to my older brother. Which we did. And we became fans of Michael Fattal and his store for life. We watched the store grow bigger and bigger over the years, without ever losing quality.
I like Fattal's freshly cooked stuffed cabbage, kibbe, tabouli, as well. (I make all of those things myself, but sometimes I don't feel like cooking, and I like the way they make such things.)
I've only had good experiences at Fattal's and I've been a lifelong customer. (So many years now!) The closest thing to a "bad experience" I ever had was that, for a while, there was a small stray kitten living in the parking lot, which I almost ran over. (And I sure didn't want to have a dead kitten on my conscience.) But even that story had a happy ending, One of Fattal's good workers, Mohammad Ata (aided by his sister Layaly) managed to catch the stray kitten--which isn't easy--and find a proper home for it. And that made me smile.
A friend from overseas, who recently stayed for a good long visit with me, said his favorite place in all of Paterson was Fattal's Bakery. I like the store a lot!
