Serving up peace in a war zone

Baghdad: Faruq Tamimi looked with satisfaction at the crowd of customers filling his restaurant. They were all there, the ones suspected of ties to Shiite militias and the ones suspected of links to Al Qaida in Iraq.

They dug into burgers dripping mayo. All of them knew people who had been involved in the killings that had destroyed his west Baghdad neighbourhood in the last two years.

It didn't bother Tamimi. For a moment, he could dream big: He wanted to add an ice cream parlour and cappuccino bar to Sun City Foods, with its jaunty postmodern-Flintstones exterior, its fish tank, shiny red chairs and tangerine-and-lime-striped walls. His waiters wore matching orange shirts and zigzagged through the maze of tables, balancing trays of Pepsi.

But Tamimi grew nervous when pondering a future without the US soldiers who have enforced the tentative peace in the neighbourhood, one of the last two Sunni-majority districts on the highway to Najaf and Karbala.

"Only God knows what will happen if the Americans leave," Tamimi said.

Rise and fall of fortune

The death and rebirth of Sun City Foods is very much a story of Baghdad's civil war. The restaurant opened in January 2006, a month before militants blew up the venerated Shiite mosque in Samarra, an attack that set off a torrent of sectarian violence. A year later, the restaurant closed because of the Sunni-Shiite conflict.

With the Saidiya neighbourhood one of the beneficiaries of last year's US troop buildup, the restaurant recently unbolted its curvaceous swinging doors for a reopening that had the pomp of a state ceremony.

Tamimi, who dresses in dark grey suits, white shirts and loafers, remembers the early days of Sun City Foods two years ago as a golden time. The restaurant's name just came to him. Sun City Foods. He liked the ring of it.

He bought a fryer to cook "Kentucky", the term Iraqis use for fried chicken. His menu offered burgers, steaks, chicken steaks, French fries, shawarma, juices and 15 types of salads.

His kitchen had the finest beef and two of the best chefs in Baghdad. He bragged about his variety of dishes, asking what other restaurant offered up a breaded steak. "Thank God, it was a hit," he remembered.

But Saidiya, like the rest of Baghdad, was overrun by violence after the bombing in Samarra. Tamimi's block on a once-thriving commercial street was targeted by car bombers and gunmen. The national police, a force heavily infiltrated by Shiite militia members, set up a checkpoint right outside the restaurant.

Gunmen often fired on the police. Stray bullets whizzed through the restaurant. Car bombs shattered windows and the police started bursting inside. They broke furniture, smashed dishes and fired warning shots. They cursed in front of his customers, searched his waiters and demanded their IDs to check religious affiliations.

Once they detained a waiter who had the Sunni-sounding name Omar. They dragged him out the door as customers watched. Tamimi sought out a friend who had good contacts with the Americans. He guessed they had 10 days to save Omar or his body would show up on a street somewhere.

Through the military, they tracked him down and he was released, but he refused to come back to work.

By January 2007, daily sandwich sales at the restaurant had dropped from 200 to 100, and Tamimi decided to close. Even then, he hoped the situation would turn around, and he kept his top two chefs on his payroll.

By late January, word spread that Saidiya was settling down. Tamimi, who had fled to Syria, debated whether to return. His brother headed back first and assured him it was safe. His restaurant had been gutted. Cooking equipment had been stolen, the furniture looted, but he decided to gamble on the drop in violence. He invested nearly $50,000 (about Dh183,740) in renovations.

He worked up a new menu, this time with additions such as pizza. He called back his chefs and applied for a $2,500 loan from the Americans, as a cushion against hard times. Tamimi was convinced he could persuade old friends to come back if he reopened.

"When I tell them it's nice here, they don't believe it. When they hear the restaurant is back, then they will feel safe," he said. "They will see this is real and not just talk."

Sun City Foods' reopening on March 20 was a festive affair attended by US and Iraqi military commanders, Sunni and Shiite local leaders.

Upstairs in the dining room, Shaikh Ilaiwi Eisa Obeidi, one of 13 Sunnis on the new Saidiya district council, balanced his small son on his lap and forked bits of salad into his mouth.

Obeidi's Shiite colleague Ali Amery, who leads the 26-member council, sat at a neighbouring table. They smiled at each other.

"I must keep going," Tamimi said on a recent weeknight. He planned on staying open late.