How the Halal Guys Fully Realized the American Dream

The Halal Guys represent what many of us may call: The American Dream. Immigrants to the United States from Egypt, the founders Muhammed Abouelenein, Ahmed Elsaka, and Abdelbaset Elsayed launched their first New York City food cart in 1990, on West 53rd & 6th Avenue. Now aiming to franchise their business and grow to over 300 new locations by the end of 2017 — they are a true entrepreneurial success & a proud Postmates partner.

Postmates met with CEO Ahmed Abouelenein, son of co-founder Muhammed Abouelenein, to discuss how the business was able to thrive against all odds — while simultaneously redefining what “halal food” means across America.

“Since the beginning, we worked day and night. We were always there for our customers— serving high quality food for an affordable price.”

However, Ahmed Abouelenein explains that some may be surprised to know that The Halal Guys didn’t always start off selling halal food.

“We started off just selling hot dogs out of a cart — but then we realized that there was barely any halal food in the city. So we started making halal meals. There was a demand for this type of food, especially for cab drivers.”

And over the years, their halal food gained incredible popularity.

“There were such long lines that we actually had to open another cart, just across the street from the first cart to keep up with all the demand!”

“Starting in 2006, we were then opening new carts all over Manhattan.” And at this point, halal food competition was in fact rising.

“Halal food started to pop up everywhere around this time, but our cart was always the most popular. We had high quality ingredients… and we were open all the time, no matter the weather. Even if it snowed or rained, we were open… this has always been at the center of who we are.”

“In 2010 I started to get more involved,” said Ahmed. “I have an engineering background and I was in charge of the cart operations, looking for ways to make things more efficient. Then in the Spring of 2016, we decided to partner with Postmates and join the on-demand space.”

It was around this time that The Halal Guys opened their first brick and mortar store and thought about franchising. “At first the owners were not so into the idea of franchising, we wanted to control what we had, and we didn’t go into this thinking that franchising was ever part of the equation.”

“But after we saw how successful our brick and mortar locations were, we realized that we can franchise, and that we should.”

“The partnership with Postmates was equally encouraging. Orders were coming in and sales were climbing.”

Looking ahead, the Halal Guys are aiming to open stores in 2017 at the ‘speed of sound.’ “We’re looking to expand to California, D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, Las Vegas, New Jersey, Philippines, and Indonesia- to name a few!”

And in terms of expanding the menu? Ahmed said they are looking to keep the menu simple — though they will start to think about the ways in which the cuisine can best match the culture in different countries. In the end though, customers should always be able to count on household favorites.