His ownership was transferred from the Jews to the Sammak family after a conditional agreement

“Foul and Falafel Mohamed Ahmed” .. an Alexandrian restaurant that hosted international politicians and intellectuals

Photo of the former Queen of Spain Sofia who visited the restaurant.

archival

Life began again in Alexandria, this summer, after a prolonged stagnation due to “Corona”, and “Foul and Falafel Mohamed Ahmed”, famous for hosting politicians, writers and media professionals, returned to his name because of the exceptional history he owned, whether during the era of his possession by the Jewish community in Alexandria or in The time of his transfer to the Sammak family in 1957, which maintained its character as a popular restaurant serving beans and falafel, in the Raml area, which was characterized by its possession of aristocratic places of a Western character.

The restaurant has been known for decades for hosting international politicians, such as the former Queen of Spain Sofia, whose pictures adorn the restaurant’s walls, as well as the former King of Greece, as the pictures reveal, handwritten and photographed signatures on the menus, the visit of prominent writers, media and intellectuals to the restaurant, such as the Nobel laureate. » International writer Naguib Mahfouz, cartoonist Ahmed Ragab, artist Fouad Al Mohandes, director Salah Abu Seif, and international singer Demis Roussos.

According to researcher and journalist, Wajdi Abdel Aziz, the restaurant is owned by the Jewish community that ran it, through a person named Benjamin in the forties and early fifties, and negotiations took place in the mid-fifties between Benjamin and Muhammad Ahmed from the Al-Sammak family, who was working in the field of popular restaurants in Al-Manshiya neighborhood, and ended To the sale of the restaurant to Muhammad Ahmad, on whom Benjamin stipulated that he continue serving food to some of the poor members of the sect, according to the traditions established by the restaurant before the sale.

This year, the restaurant witnessed an influential event represented in the death of its owner, Mohamed Ahmed, last January, which saddened large sectors of Alexandria and other Egyptian governorates, because they knew him and were associated with the restaurant, and Mohamed Ahmed mourned the great writer and writer and author of the novel “No one sleeps in Alexandria, Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, on his page on the social networking site “Facebook”, describing the late one of the signs of Alexandria.

It is worth noting that the famous “Foul and Falafel Mohamed Ahmed” not only took pictures inside the restaurant, or wrote memories about it in the media, but also recorded their joy in it through phrases written with their hands, photographed and transferred on the menu, the funniest of which is Naguib Mahfouz’s statement in which he said: “Greetings to the beautiful shop and its generous owner, and greetings to the dinner, whose pleasure will remain with us for a long time,” and Fouad Al-Muhandis’s phrase, in which he said, “Two words, but the beans are crazy,” linking him between his presence in the restaurant and his famous radio program “Two Words Only.”

Famous “Foul and Falafel Mohamed Ahmed” not only took pictures inside the restaurant, or wrote memories of it in the media, but also recorded their joy in it through phrases written by their hands.

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