“This is what we eat,” he said. “We love to share our food with everybody. My comfort zone is food. I’ve talked to a lot of people, and if you don’t love the food business, you’re not going to last.”
The flavors at PitaLicious—olive oil, garlic, onions, dill, paprika and mint—represent the home countries of its owners: Zayour grew up in Lebanon, and his wife, Lemira, was born in Greece and later relocated to live in Lebanon.
Zayour has a degree in software engineering from The University of Texas, but he also went to culinary school. He said he decided to apply his love of food and open a food truck. Zayour became one of many to join the booming food truck business on South Congress Avenue and opened the first PitaLicious location in 2011.
“I was only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday after work, and [business] just took off from there,” he said.
The Zayours later expanded to two mobile locations for catering and events, such as Austin City Limits. They decided to open a brick-and-mortar location in North Austin near their home in Wells Branch and opened the restaurant in July 2018.
Zayour said he also focuses on sourcing fresh vegetables and using halal meats because he believes they are healthier. All sauces, and even the yogurt for the tzatziki, is made in-house. Organic garbanzo beans, or chickpeas, are soaked overnight to become the base for the restaurant’s falafel, he said.
“We make it hard on ourselves, but I think that’s a joy for us,” he said. “We really have a joy when we make [our food].”
PitaLicious
4101 W. Parmer Lane, Ste. C, Austin
512-309-0199
www.austinpitalicious.com
Hours: daily 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m.,
Fri.-Sat. 5:30-9:30 p.m.
