It has not been the easiest two months for Ayhan Hassan, since he opened the latest of his East Mediterranean restaurants in the heart of Middle Neck Road’s commercial district.
Between Ayhan’s Shish Kabob opening in September and its formal ribbon cutting two weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy cut power to Hassan’s restaurants across Nassau County, spoiling ingredients and causing about $100,000 in damages, the restaurateur said.
But the new Great Neck restaurant, Hassan said, was a bright spot, situated in the narrow stretch of Middle Neck Road that did not lose electricity and greeted warmly by the peninsula’s diners.
“It’s been very busy,” said Hassan. “[The Village of Great Neck Estates] made the transition very smooth.”
Ayhan’s serves up pita bread sandwiches stuffed with ingredients inspired by the Near East – lamb and steak shish kabob, falafel drizzled with tahina sauce and spit-roasted chicken gyro – along with Mediterranean salads and appetizers.
Though Hassan’s culinary roots lie in his native Cyprus, his menu is multiethnic, including Greek, Israeli, and Armenian dishes.
“All my recipes really go back to my mom’s cooking,” Hassan said. “Our cooking style evolved from Cypriot cooking to East Mediterannean cooking.”
And though he manages a string of restaurants, Hassan said he still likes to work from behind the grill.
“It’s my passion,” he said. “Cooking is fun.”
Hassan’s Great Neck restaurant stands in a building that he said he has long admired – a semicircular facade on the corner of Cedar Drive, now decorated with large prints of boats, cliff sides and coastal living.
And it is the latest in Hassan’s chain of Long Island restaurants, which he credits with helping to bring Mediterranean cuisine to the North Shore two decades ago.
Hassan arrived in New York from his native Cyprus 43 years ago after working as a sailor on an oil tanker and quickly put down roots on Long Island, he said.
“When I came to Long Island… being from an island, it was an attraction,” Hassan said. “Long Island has been very good to me.”
About 20 years ago Hassan launched his first restaurant on Main Street in Port Washington.
“It was an instant hit from the first day,” he said.
Hassan now operates shish kabob restaurants in Great Neck, Port Washington, Plainview, Baldwin and Westbury, as well as a Mediterannean delicatessen and a seafood restaurant in Port Washington and two Pita Express snack bars in Rockville Center and East Meadow.
Though the Great Neck location was spared from the blackouts caused by Sandy, Hassan’s other restaurants were not so fortunate.
Most of his restaurants were without power for two to four days, Hassan said, but the Baldwin location was out for two weeks.
The outages forced the disposal of unrefrigerated ingredients in the affected restaurants.
“It took us two or three days just to start cooking again [after power was restored],” Hassan said. “It’s a loss of business, a loss of food, and of course unemployed restaurant workers.”
“We always think positive… it could be worse,” he continued.
Though the storm hit his restaurants hard, the new Great Neck location – one of the few open restaurants in the days after the hurricane – drew big crowds, Hassan said.
