Palestinian brings Middle Eastern food to Oakland

Mohammed Issa is a fighter.

In 1989, Issa stepped out of his car to help another man with… Mohammed Issa is a fighter.

In 1989, Issa stepped out of his car to help another man with his car, and was run over by a drunk driver. He spent 18 hours in surgery to have his jaw and his legs fixed. He laid comatose for 24 days.

Issa describes himself as being “worse than road kill” at that point.

Since the opening of his food cart in 1998, Issa has had to face another battle: the Pittsburgh City Council. The council repeatedly relocated his cart around Oakland, changing the amount of business that he received. He recently overcame this problem on Feb. 7 by opening up Leena’s Food, a restaurant located on Oakland Avenue.

Issa began selling his Middle Eastern food by the Hillman Library, only to move after the Schenley Plaza Parking Lot was closed. According to Issa, business was going extremely well for him on Thackeray Street, and hoards of people stood around his cart, waiting for food or socializing with Issa and other customers as they ate. Then, the city ordered him to move his cart to Bigelow Boulevard.

Issa contends that this final move hurt business. He said, though, that the location of his restaurant, which is between Fifth Avenue and Forbes Avenue, will hopefully match the traffic he saw with his cart.

He has been told by many of his customers that he makes some of the best food in the world. Issa has even received the compliment that his gyros are better than ones made in Greece.

Cooking was not his first choice as a career, though.

Issa left Palestine in 1979 to attend Pitt, but he never graduated because he did not focus on his studies. He still likes to tell people he has a degree, though.

Eventually, he decided to pursue plastering, until it became too physically demanding for him after his accident.

He began working in restaurants and found that many cooks were taking shortcuts when they prepared food. Issa said that the taste of the food was never authentic and food was not served fresh. On some occasions, people would get sick from these spoiled foods.

He felt that Middle Eastern people were being given a bad name because of this “lousy service,” so he decided to begin his own food business.

“I want the American people to taste the real Middle Eastern food. The way it should taste. It’s not about business,” Issa explained.

Issa has reached his goals by serving fresh food and by using many homemade recipes, including one for the yogurt that he uses in his gyros.

One final battle that Issa and his family face is that of helping his daughter, Reema, adjust to not having a right hand.

In 2003, she placed her hand into a working mincer – a machine that cuts meat. Issa tried collecting money to afford a prosthetic hand for her, but he has stopped. The prosthetic hand would have to continually be replaced as she grows up, which means that Issa would have to continually raise money for new prosthetics.

Instead, he has set aside an account for her and plans on using the money for a hand transplant, or something else such as education, when she is 18. Currently, she is going through physical therapy, because she is right-handed in her mind, he said, but she must learn to write with her left hand.

Other than the fact that Issa wants Americans to taste authentic Middle Eastern food, he cooks because, as he puts it, “I’m good at it.”