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Sultan's Restaurant's new location serving downtown East Lansing

May 17, 2012
Prep cook Ray Rodriguez of Saginaw, Michigan plates a salad at Sultan's Thursday, May 17, 2012.  Sultan's is a new Middle Eastern cuisine restaurant located at 235 Ann Street. Adam Toolin/The State News
Prep cook Ray Rodriguez of Saginaw, Michigan plates a salad at Sultan's Thursday, May 17, 2012. Sultan's is a new Middle Eastern cuisine restaurant located at 235 Ann Street. Adam Toolin/The State News

Even though they’re opening their doors during a time many MSU students travel back home for the summer, the new location of Sultan’s Restaurant, 235 Ann St., has not had any problems selling their popular chicken shawarmas and fresh-squeezed juices, owner Bassam Mahmoud said.

Mahmoud also owns another Sultan’s location, 4790 S. Hagadorn Road, and a Sultan’s Express, 305 S. Washington Square, in Lansing. Mahmoud is co-owner of the downtown East Lansing location with Fareed Nessari.

Mahmoud said the new location is a bigger restaurant featuring multiple amenities, including a juice bar and healthy food options that separate it from other local restaurants.

“We have gelato ice cream, a fresh-squeezed juice bar for smoothies, a full line of coffees and lastly, food for many different kinds of tastes,” he said.

Many of the employees working at the new location of Sultan’s are students, and one of them is Mahmoud’s daughter, Sarah Mahmoud, a nutritional sciences junior and cashier at the restaurant.

“The restaurant is doing better than I thought, and I think it’s in the perfect location,” she said.

“It’s kind of a ghost town, and not a lot of students (come in), but employees that work around here come in for their lunch break.”

Sarah Mahmoud said the restaurant will begin opening for later hours once the fall semester starts.

“We might sell sandwiches through the window for people leaving the bar,” she said.

Working with Sarah as a cashier is her friend, psychology senior, Essra Abdel-Azim,

“I previously worked in food service, so I knew everything about it and am interested in expanding in working and getting to interact with different people,” she said.

Abdel-Azim said her favorite item on the menu isn’t the typical chicken shawarma, but instead the chicken kabob.

“It’s spiced up with some really good stuff,” she said.

Recent MSU alumnus Tyler Smith said he didn’t realize Sultan’s was open for business, but if he was in the area, he would stop to check it out.

“I think opening in the school year will get more business, but if they want to work out the kinks of the restaurant and prepare for massive amounts of students that are about to come back, then it would be a good idea to open in the summer,” he said.

Smith said he has not tried Sultan’s yet because there is a Woody’s Oasis Bar & Grill close to where he spends most of his time on campus.

“One of the reasons I would eat at Woody’s a lot is because it’s in the International Center and it was really close to the Engineering Building where I am all the time,” Smith said.

“This one is a little harder, trying to come off campus out here when there’s a Woody’s already on campus, but I can see how people like the food and the competition,” he said.

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