Loading ...Halal Guys Donate $30,000 to Community College Scholarship Fund
Three Egyptian immigrants who saw a demand for Halal food in New York City started the Halal Guys street food carts serving up hot halal meats, pita brea, and sauces. They went from having one cart, to 355 throughout the country, and even one in the Philippines. From their franchise, they began a scholarship fund at LaGuardia Community College, where their carts can often be found. The children of Halal Guys attended LaGuardia, where many immigrants go to attain affordable education in the U.S.
The New York Times
By Elizabeth Harris
The Halal Guys food cart in front of LaGuardia Community College in Queens looks pretty much like any other cart on that stretch of Thomson Avenue, and its prices are low enough not to scare away the students: $5 for a falafel sandwich, $7 for gyro over rice and $5 for chicken wrapped in pita and doused in sauce.
But on Thursday, the Halal Guys, whose familiar yellow carts have expanded into a global franchise, will hand over a $30,000 donation to LaGuardia. That’s 6,000 sandwiches, in check form.
“It must be good if there’s a line this long!” said Kyle McCloud, a man from Jacksonville, Fla., who was about to sample his first chicken platter.
The original Halal Guys are three immigrants from Egypt — Mohamed Abouelenein, Ahmed Elsaka and Abdelbaset Elsayed — who started out with a hot dog cart in Midtown Manhattan. They switched to Halal food in the early 1990s after noticing demand among taxi drivers.
“If you want to know what’s good and what’s bad in any town, you ask a cabdriver,” said Hesham Hegazy, the director for business and brand development at Halal Guys. “It took no time for the word to get out and the line to start building.”
From left, Abdelbaset Elsayed and Mohamed Abouelenein, the food cart’s founders, with Hesham Hegazy, a manager. Mr. Abouelenein’s three children have attended LaGuardia.The Halal Guys first donated to LaGuardia, which is in the Long Island City neighborhood, in 2013, when their entire operation was a couple of food trucks, some piles of meat and pita bread serving the lunch crowd. Today, they have signed about 335 franchise agreements, Mr. Hegazy said, with locations in the Philippines, California and Texas. This gift, like the two previous ones, will go to the Halal Guys scholarship fund, which is somewhat less famous than their gyros or the white sauce on them.
The gift is being funded by Dan Rowe, the chief executive of Fransmart, the restaurant franchise consulting firm that works with the Halal Guys. He had promised Mr. Hegazy that if the company signed a deal in South Korea, he would give part of his commission to LaGuardia, which serves 50,000 students a year, most of them poor and many of them immigrants. Mr. Abouelenein, one of the founders, sent three of his children there, one of whom now runs the company.
At lunchtime on Thomson Avenue on Wednesday, two or three food carts dotted each block on the busy thoroughfare. There was a Korean Grill and a coffee cart (“If you’re not shaking, you need another cup,” a sign near the bagels read). There was a waffles-and-crepes truck, and a cart offering cheeseburgers and lamb gyros. There was a lonely-looking woman selling fruit.
But only the Halal Guys seemed to have an employee whose entire job was to manage the line. Mr. Hegazy said they also employ a bouncer on weekend nights to control the crowd at one of their Midtown spots.
As news of the donation spread down the line, one by one the patrons said they were delighted or impressed. Some said they were more likely than ever to go back. But not one student named Mohammad Aminoor Rasul.
“Oh, that’s terrible,” he said. He was not happy at LaGuardia and said he planned to transfer to another college.
“But I love this place,” he said of the Halal Guys cart. “The food is really good.”