In River Oaks, this restaurant serves a true ‘family feast’ for less than $10 each
Even family restaurants need more help.
Short on staff since the start of school, Nish! Mediterranean Grill has found the workers to reopen and is serving family-style dinners again to patrons in River Oaks and west Fort Worth.
“My kids were trying to do it all — we were going like crazy and we just couldn’t do it,” owner Anwar Khalil said.
He’s made a big success out of a small, simple restaurant in a former Braum’s at 4913 Ohio Garden Road, on the corner at River Oaks Boulevard.
That’s the paradox of owning a restaurant in 2021: Nish! is such a success, Khalil had to close for six weeks until he could hire more staff.
On Aug. 9, the restaurant’s Facebook page announced that Nish! was “unable to meet the challenge” and would take a break.
This week, Nish! reopened for dinner, serving gyros, platters and “family feasts,” a family-style kebabs dinner for four people ($39.99 with kebabs, $45.99 with shawarma and gyro) up to 12 people ($129.99).
Nish! opened in 2019 just as residents were starting to move into the River District apartments farther south on Roberts Cut Off Road.
Now, it’s part of a River Oaks restaurant renaissance along with Mexican breakfast-lunch favorite Josefina’s, home-cooking hangout River Oaks Cafe, Tex-Mex mainstay Chuy’s (not the flashy Chuy’s of Austin chain) and pizza-and-pasta Italiano’s.
“People here are so kind to us — everybody is like family here,” Khalil said.
He found River Oaks when he was looking to open a tire shop. He found a restaurant for Mediterranean meals made the way his family cooked in a small town near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
“When I came to River Oaks, I thought I was coming to relax,” he said with a grin. “But I’m too busy to relax.”
For now, Nish! isn’t serving its lunch buffet.
But the large dinner platters of shawarma, kebabs, seafood or lamb shank cost $15-$16 (lamb chops are $23.99.)
Nish! has one of the better dessert selections for a Mediterranean restaurant, ranging from baklava and tiramisu to rice pudding with coconut , loukoumades (doughnuts) and rich basbousa cake, made with semolina flour.
Nish! also has more sauces than some restaurants, with a spicy green sauce and a shatta hot sauce, along with tzatziki and tahini.
“We make everything and serve it the way we make it ourselves at home,” Khalil said.
Some neighbors come two or three times a week, he said. One customer drives from Alvarado.
Nish! is open for dinner Tuesdays through Saturdays and lunch Sundays; 817-615-9292, nishmedigrill.com.
This story was originally published September 22, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
