AlBeik

AlBeik is a family-owned Lebanese restaurant on the State Line border in south Kansas City, opened in 2025 by a Lebanese family — married co-owners Diana Ammar and Saleem Fahda with Saleem’s brother Ahmad Fahda — serving fast-casual shawarma, charbroiled kebabs, falafel, and mezze built on longtime family recipes and tagged “a taste of home, miles away from Beirut.”

Description

AlBeik is a fast-casual Lebanese restaurant at 13135 State Line Road in south Kansas City, Missouri, near 131st and State Line — a border location the owners chose deliberately to reach diners on both the Missouri and Kansas sides.¹² The space previously housed Southern Kitchen KC (closed March 2023) and, briefly, Gianni’s Italian Restaurant (late 2023 to early 2024) before AlBeik took it over.¹

The concept mirrors the fast, casual sandwich shops popular in Lebanon: limited dine-in seating with a steady to-go and delivery trade. The menu centers on shawarma (beef and chicken), charbroiled kebabs and kafta, chicken tawouk, falafel, and mezze including hummus, baba ghannouj, and arayes (grilled pita stuffed with spiced ground meat).¹²³ The kitchen also offers crossover items such as the “AlBeik Smashed Burger” and an avocado-sauce chicken sandwich.³ Local review coverage singled out the falafel — crisp outside, fluffy inside, spiced with cardamom, cumin, and black pepper — and the paper-thin, lightly sweet Lebanese pita that distinguishes the restaurant from thicker Mediterranean styles.² The restaurant advertises itself as 100% Halal.³

Ownership and history

AlBeik is owned and operated by a Lebanese family: married co-owners Diana Ammar and Saleem Fahda, together with Saleem’s brother Ahmad Fahda.¹² All three come from food backgrounds in Lebanon. The Fahda brothers’ father ran a food-service operation at Lebanese University that fed roughly 1,000 students; Ammar, also from Lebanon, comes from a family of chefs, including her mother and uncle.¹ The owners describe AlBeik as a place to bring “the true Lebanese flavors here” for both the local Lebanese expatriate community and newcomers to the cuisine, and the brand tagline reads “a taste of home, miles away from Beirut.”¹³

The restaurant opened in 2025. Kansas City Magazine reported the opening as expected in late 2024 or early 2025, and the Martin City Telegraph’s April 16, 2025 review described AlBeik as having opened “just over a month” prior — placing the opening in approximately March 2025.¹² No food-truck or prior-location origin was found; AlBeik appears to be a from-scratch brick-and-mortar debut.

Links

• Website: https://albeik.us
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/albeikkc/
• Phone: (816) 216-1703

See also

• Registry

Sources

Footnotes

1. Kansas City Magazine — “Lebanese restaurant to open on State Line” — https://kansascitymag.com/lebanese-restaurant-to-open-on-state-line/ — accessed 2026-05-30 (owners Diana Ammar, Saleem & Ahmad Fahda; Lebanese origin; family food backgrounds; concept; menu; State Line border rationale; prior tenants; expected late-2024/early-2025 opening). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. Martin City Telegraph — “AlBeik’s Lebanese food is great to go” (April 16, 2025) — https://martincitytelegraph.com/2025/04/16/albeiks-lebanese-food-is-great-to-go/ — accessed 2026-05-30 (opened ~one month prior to review; ownership trio; fast-casual to-go concept; falafel, hummus, baba ganoush, arayes kafta, fried cheese rolls; thin Lebanese pita; spice notes). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. AlBeik official site — https://albeik.us/ and https://albeik.us/our-menu — accessed 2026-05-30 (address, phone, daily 11–9 hours, tagline “a taste of home, miles away from Beirut,” 100% Halal, signature smashed burger and chicken sandwich, shawarma/kafta/falafel/tawouk menu). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴