Entrepreneur is now taking his kofta kebabs to mass market

Assad Majid, Syria

Owner of Sinbad Middle Eastern Restaurant, Eastwood, Syracuse

By Mary Beth Roach

Just a few years ago, Syrian-born Assad Majid, his wife and their four children were fleeing their home in Damascus, seeking safety in Jordan, away from a civil war that was tearing apart their country.

Today, he is the owner of Sinbad Sweets, a Middle Eastern restaurant at 2727 James St., in Syracuse’s Eastwood neighborhood and is set to manufacture his award-winning lamb kofta kebabs for the mass market.

Majid’s family has been in the food business for many years. His father owned a sweets shop in Damascus and his brothers owned several restaurants throughout the Middle East. Now Majid is carrying on his family tradition here.

After earning a master’s degree in business, he was working in Dubai, splitting his time between his accounting job and a restaurant owned by one of his brothers. He said he started by mopping floors, but eventually became a chef there. He worked there for 10 years before heading to Damascus and starting a chocolate factory. Civil war broke out in 2011. His factory would be destroyed in a bombing and at the end of 2012, he and his family went to Jordan, where they stayed for about 3.5 years. They came to the U.S. as refugees.

They settled in Syracuse a little more than seven years ago. He said he got a job in accounting, but after three months, he decided he wanted to start his own enterprise, which had always been his goal.

He chose the former East Room bar site. Majid said he changed everything at the location, with funding from his brothers. He opened the business in 2019, bringing his specialties, based on family recipes, to Central New Yorkers. He said he chose to incorporate “Sinbad” into the name of the shop, because like the fictional sailor, he too has traveled extensively.

His business survived COVID-19 and has won several awards — one of those awards would led him into a new venture. He received the Luxlife Magazine’s Restaurant and Bar Awards in 2023 for the best kofta kebab.

“Why should I keep the kofta kebab only here in Syracuse?” he asked.

He decided to make it available to the public in general, so he planned to manufacture it and sell it to large grocery stores, like Wegmans and Walmart.

Where most kebabs consist of chunks of meat on a skewer, Majid explained that his consist of ground lamb on bamboo skewers. He faced some obstacles in getting his foot in the door, but he remained tenacious. He is in talks now and hopes to have the kebabs on the market within a few months. The kebabs will be sold frozen and available for consumers to put right on the grill or bake in the oven.

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