Nomie Hamid's savory success - The Krazi Kebob story

Naumaan Hamid is not fasting for Ramadan this year.

The 27-year-old is on doctor’s orders to break from the yearly fast and eat throughout the day to keep his stress-induced ulcers under control.

“Nomie” as friends, employees, and loyal customers call him, has good reason to be stressed, he owns a restaurant.

In October 2010 Hamid opened Krazi Kebob, a fast-food restaurant in College Park that took the burrito assembly-line success of Chipotle and injected Pakistani and Indian flavor.  

To understand this fusion, first picture a burrito. Now replace the tortilla with traditional naan bread and fill it with jasmine rice, masalas, kebob meats and chutneys.

Working from before opening to after closing each day means that Hamid spends up to 14 hours a day to keep his place running smoothly.

“It's always tough, but I love it,” Hamid said. “I enjoy creating new things, I love cooking and I love feeding people. If someone comes in here and they leave happy, it makes my day.”

As a third-generation restaurateur, that love might just be genetic.

“Whether we like it or not we are inclined towards the restaurant business,” said Shan Hamid, president of Shaheen Catering in Baltimore and Nomie’s older brother. He said laughing, “you’re not forced in, you just get pulled in! So it was really just part of his make up I guess.”

The naan wrap fillings are Nomie Hamid’s creation, but the samosas, offered as a side dish at Krazi Kebob, are a recipe handed down from his grandfather, Abdul Hamid, a Muslim Indian man who moved to Pakistan and then immigrated to the U.S. in 1968.

Abdul Hamid struggled for a few years to stabilize himself and his family but he eventually opened the first Pakistani-Indian sweet shop in New York City, Shaheen Sweets, in 1973.

Shaheen Sweets started out small but quickly became a household name in the area now known Jackson Heights, New York Magagazine even did a four-page spread on the place in 2008.

The original shop is still there, and its website says that the story of Shaheen Sweets “is the American Dream.”

“They started when there weren’t many other Pakistani or Indian food places around, so they really got a jump on the market. My grandfather even advertised in Yankee Stadium,” Nomie Hamid said.

Abdul Hamid had five children, and three of his sons followed him into the business, the eldest was Salaam Hamid, Nomie Hamid’s father.

Salaam Hamid opened a Shaheen restaurant in the neighborhood but competition eventually slowed business, and Salaam decided to move the Shaheen name a bit further south.

Salaam Hamid saw opportunity in the less-competitive Baltimore area where there was an influx of Middle Eastern immigrants who, missing the flavors of their home, might become customers, Shan Hamid said.

It was at his father’s Baltimore Shaheen restaurant where the small version of Nomie Hamid discovered his love for cooking— at age 5 he felt the first slight tug towards the family business.

“I grew up working at my father’s place and became a fast learner. I’d watch someone make something and then I’d duplicate it,” Hamid said. “People would never believe that I was 13 or 14 years old and cooking everything the chefs were cooking.”

But as he excelled in the kitchen, his schoolwork always seemed to come in last place.

What the outgoing teenager did like about school was the social aspect.  He founded a few clubs, won leadership awards and was even made principal for a day.

Still, Hamid said he hated to study and was spending most of his nights working for his father and also at his brother Shan’s restaurant.

“He was a hard worker, but along with hard work you have to have the ability to connect with people,” Shan Hamid said. “And that ability was there as well.”

Nomie Hamid started working on little things here and there, but was eventually doing more and more.

The pull towards the family business became a little stronger.

“After high school I remember my father finally saying ‘Listen! Go and make yourself useful and become a chef because you’re not going to do anything else,’” Hamid said.

It wasn’t quite as harsh as it sounds.

His large extended family voted in a business meeting that Nomie Hamid’s natural culinary talent and entrepreneurial spirit made him a natural fit to join the family business and help the Shaheen name continue into the 21st century.

Nomie attended Johnson and Wales University in Providence, R.I., where he received a degree in hospitality.

“Once I got there it changed my life,” Hamid said. “It went from high school never going to class to college never missing class. I knew what to do because I had seen it all before working with my dad and brother.”

Hamid was offered jobs after graduating, but following the family business would mean opening his own place.

Nomie Hamid gladly gave in to the pull.

With help from ‘Shaheen International,’ an umbrella company that covers the many restaurants and businesses owned by the family, Nomie Hamid opened Krazi Kebob at age 25.

In the midst of painting bright red and yellow walls and choosing the right tandoori oven to make his fresh naan, Nomie Hamid knew he would need to find a good staff.

It was important for Hamid to find people who were hard working and eager to learn—lack of experience, language barriers were consciously overlooked.

“One of my goals is to take someone who is less fortunate, whether that is in language or any sort of disability, whatever it is, and give them the opportunity to let them grow here,” Hamid said.

Scott Anjun, spoke little English when Hamid offered him a job at Krazi Kebob.

“Nomie is a great guy. He let me come to work for him and I have been here since he opened,” Anjun said. “He knows so much and he has taught me so much. We work together a lot.”

He and Hamid work together to prepare the food and tweak the menu from time to time. Anjun was a co-inventor of both the Krazi naan pizza and the naan quesadilla—his personal favorite.

Hamid’s motivation to teach and better his staff comes from a more deeply planted moral seed. A seed planted by his religious background.

“We’re Muslim, and you’re taught from a young age to work in community service,” Hamid said. “And not just to go work for free, but to do something that will benefit the world.”

During the school year, Hamid works with University of Maryland student organizations to host fundraisers at Krazi Kebob.

The students get as many people to come to eat at the restaurant as possible during a certain timespan, and then Hamid donates a percentage of sales to the organization.

“The students are our source of income, so why not give back?” Hamid said.

At the restaurant today, you will find a relaxed but fast-moving Nomie Hamid. He moves from the food line to the register, then picks up a phone order or makes lists at a back table for a catering event and, of course, he always chats up the customers.

He makes his way from table to table, questioning people about their meal.

“So was that too spicy for you?” Hamid asks a woman dining with her son.

“No, no you were right, it was perfect!” she says back. He had helped her choose which chutney to put on her Krazi Salad Bowl.

The College Park Krazi Kebob has been so well received by his customers and family that Nomie Hamid opened a second Krazi Kebob in Baltimore eight months ago.

But Hamid doesn’t want to stop there.

“The 5-to-10 year plan is to develop this whole region,” Hamid said. “Then build into a franchise and hopefully be national one day.”

But the competition is already heating up as two similar restaurants that have popped up in the area within the last year or so, but if Hamid is worried about them, he doesn’t let on.

“Or international…I wouldn’t mind that either,” he said. “That’s the goal, so lets see how far it goes.”