Restaurant Salaam, a popular eatery on 21 W. Washington St., has served Athens residents Mediterranean dishes since it opened in 2006.
Hilarie Burhans, co-owner and executive chef of Salaam alongside her husband, Mark, never planned to venture into the restaurant business. Salaam was originally a Hookah bar called Shishah Café.
Shishah was a small, cramped space on Court Street. At that location, the Burhans introduced a lunch service at the bar using only two hot plates and a countertop convection oven. Burhans had some culinary experience and experimented with serving some ethnic dishes at the bar.
“When I was a kid, I lived in Ethiopia and I lived in Pakistan,” Burhans said. “My parents lived in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, so I had eaten food from all over. I used to teach for Hocking College in the off-campus programs as a culinary arts instructor, and I used to teach classical and international cuisine a lot. I’ve just always been a food person.”
In November 2006, Ohio voters passed a smoking ban which prohibited smoking in public places and places of employment, giving the owners approximately one year to decide how to transform the business. Burhans shifted solely to food and introduced a new dinner service.
“People just really liked our food, and they wanted more of it,” Burhans said. “We were just really busy, and the facility was completely inadequate to be an actual restaurant.”
One of their regular customers approached Burhans and told her about an available space just off of Court Street on West Washington Street, and she said she immediately fell in love with the space.
Burhans and her husband decided to take the plunge and officially moved to their current location in 2009, and renamed the restaurant to Salaam, a common Arabic greeting.
Salaam serves a variety of lamb dishes, including lamb rib chops, marinated in a Turkish pepper rub Burhans herself devised. The restaurant’s coconut chicken curry is another fan favorite, which is a homage to the ethnic cuisine Burhans enjoyed growing up. The menu’s prices range from $8 to $30.
Adam Jordan, the specials chef at Salaam, has worked at Salaam for 16 years and helps create new options to add to the menu alongside Burhans.
“We have a very diverse menu,” Jordan said. “We also cater to people with religious restrictions. We are a small town that gets really big because we have so many students, and they come from all over the world.”
Athens resident Susan Williford and her husband have been eating at Salaam for years, and are regular customers at the establishment.
“The quality of the food is excellent,” Williford said. “The service is very good. We love some of their signature dishes, so we come specifically with some things in mind of what we might get, and it's always consistently high quality. It's one of the nicest restaurants in Athens.”
Burhans’ main goal for the restaurant was to provide quality international food to the people of Athens and create an inviting atmosphere that kept patrons coming back for more.
“Hilarie (Burhans) has done such a nice job of decorating and making sure the place is warm and inviting,” Jordan said. “She’s lived all over the world, and all of that is reflected in the restaurant as well.”
Burhans created a warm, welcoming environment in her restaurant, making it a place patrons want to come back to often, and she treats her employees like family.
“It’s been great,” Jordan said. “Hilarie and Mark both. They’re amazing people to work for. At this point, we are basically like family – we do Thanksgiving together. I couldn’t ask for better bosses.”
