- Halal Guys, they were
huge in New York street food before New York was really
huge into street food. It was almost entirely
an immigrant enterprise, and it was on the street
and no one had branding and no one had a Twitter account, and The Halal Guys did that
and became stars for it. - It grew from very humble beginnings. One, two, three, four
customers at the carts to now massive lines
everywhere in the states. - There was this fear, will The Halal Guys be able to survive
outside of New York City, where it's so diverse. (upbeat music) - If you ever went to the cart,
at the corner of 53rd & 6th in midtown, like deepest
darkest midtown, like, you know, office buildings every where there would be a line that would stretch literally a hundred feet. And there would be just people waiting for their chicken and rice,
or their lamb and rice. - The Halal Guys was started in 1990 as a hot dog stand,
and it quickly evolved. Taxi drivers gave the feedback, that look, we want something
more wholesome, more filling. (music) - Gyro is ground meat that's stacked and put onto a spit that then rotates with heat on it that we
slice into thin slices and then cook on our
griddle to finish it off. And we serve it piping hot in either a sandwich or on our platter. - Our chicken is halal, it's
humanely raised chicken, it is never frozen, always fresh. We get the chicken and marinate
it between 12 to 24 hours with our spices and then it gets cooked. Our platter starts with the
fresh lettuce and tomatoes with basmati rice and
then we add the beef gyro, and our chicken, and the pita bread. We have different toppings
that we can add to the platter, like green peppers and onions and jalapeño and hummus, baba ganoush, but what most people are gonna want is the delicious white sauce. (base guitar music) - The white sauce is just unbelievable, nobody can replicate it. - That damn white sauce, it is so good! - I've seen people that
come and load their platter with white sauce where
you don't see anything, it almost looks like a white sauce soup. I was introduced to The Halal Guys by my brother-in-law
actually, who first told me about trying this great
cart in New York City. It was in the middle of the winter, I stood in line for about half an hour. I made the mistake that I didn't know how hot the hot sauce was, so I told them to just load it with hot sauce. There I am sweating, my
wife is there like sweating, we took out jackets off, it was like we even opened the windows in almost zero degrees weather and we're eating this
food, we couldn't stop, it was so hot but it just so delicious. When the opportunity came along and we found out that
they are franchising, we decided that there's
no one better to do this than big fans of The Halal Guys. My partners are Sami and Mouhammed. Mouhammed is my younger brother, Sami is a long time family friend. We opened our first store
in East Brunswick in 2016. We are looking to open 18
locations in the next 4-5 years. - I used to come every summer early 2000 to work at the carts, I worked
every position of the cart, from grill man to serving line to prep, to cleaning the streets,
everything you can imagine. I use to experience seeing people from every different
nationality stand in line for a plate of food. It was just something mind blowing for me and as I was young, I was 16,
17 years old at that time. - Middle Eastern food really is just starting to gain traction and so Halal Guys really
seized that opportunity. I love the fact that this was a way for Middle Eastern people
to share their culture, to share their food with other people. (piano music) - America has a really weird
and complicated relationship with Muslim people from
all over the world. To have a chain of restaurants, that is spreading nationwide, that people love and
to have the word halal right in the name of that restaurant, that's saying in no uncertain terms that we're your neighbors and we live here just as much as you do and we love it here just as much as you do. And we are trying to make
the most of our opportunity just as you are. - I was born in Saudi Arabia
to Palestinian parents. I hope for my children to
be able to have the choice that I didn't have when
I grew up as an immigrant and the struggle that we had coming here. I'm hoping to build a
better life for them, a more stable life, with this business and with the franchise. - Our carts became one of
New York City landmarks and that's very cool. (piano music)
