Falafel tacos, arayes, and smoothies mark just a few of the popular items at 7beebz Korner (pronounced “Habeeb’s Corner”), the new addition to the Vegan Nom Food Park at 2308 E. Cesar Chavez. Owner Abe Damra says his mission is to provide the three B’s to customers: food that is “bueno, bonito, y barato.”
Damra moved to the U.S. from Amman, the capital of Jordan, over 20 years ago. The youth leadership program Seeds of Peace allowed him to move to New York, where he went to college and later worked in the finance industry. It was in the Big Apple that he began cooking family recipes for friends, earning the nickname “Habeeb” for his hosting and cooking skills. (His food truck plays on this term of endearment; the number 7 represents one of the characters in the Arabic alphabet that makes an ‘H’ sound.)
Damra credits not only his time in New York, but also the rich history and diversity in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Levant, for informing the cuisine he serves. “Think about Amman, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Beirut. They’re four capitals of four different countries, but they’re like Austin, San Antonio, and Houston distance-wise. So imagine these capitals within an hour or two of driving,” he explains. “They have their own different cuisines but you can’t really segregate them because they’re so intertwined. So, you get all the influence.
“My mom is Jordanian, my dad is Palestinian, grandma Syrian, and so you get the rice, the kebab, the pomegranate … That’s all from the Levant area. So I grew up in a house that had a wealth of knowledge of recipes that you just couldn’t pass on.”
Nowhere is that more apparent than 7beebz Korner’s falafel. Although Damra originally sold his fried chickpea balls in pita wrap, rice bowl, or standalone form, the falafel at the food truck has become so popular that he’s now serving them in tacos as well. Accompanied with pomegranate, onion, tomato, cucumber, and pickle, it’s a light, refreshing, and still filling bite that seems like the ultimate cheat code. “The falafel is a sentimental value item for me because that’s what we ate in school: falafel rolled up in pitas,” Damra says.
Although arayes have not quite yet become a worldwide phenomenon on the level of shawarma or doner wraps, it’s easy to see how they’ve become Damra’s guilty pleasure item. “From a technical perspective, arayes are like a kofta smashburger inside the pita,” he explains. “Someone once called it a Mediterranean quesadilla.” The flavors of the bread, seasoned kofta beef, and the sweet pomegranate molasses sprinkled on top create an easy-to-eat combination. Beyond these highlights, tofu, guacamole, and organic smoothies and slushies expand 7beebz’s offerings for the Vegan Nom park’s health-conscious clientele.
Although Damra is still a New Yorker at heart, he has fully embraced Austin and credits his neighbors at his Downtown apartment residence for inspiring him to open his food truck. It was at their HOA potluck lunches that his neighbors began asking him to just cater the whole thing himself and eventually encouraged him to open up a spot where they could go support him and get food from him a few times a week.
“People in Austin are incredibly lovely,” he gushes. “It was refreshing coming from NYC. No knock on New York. It’s just that I lived there for 20 years and Austin is such a welcoming crowd.
“[Here, their mentality is] try it out. If it works out, they are behind you and support you. Everybody’s just so positive and supportive, unconditionally. It’s been unbelievably refreshing to have such a positive outlook, even though you don’t know how it’s gonna go.”
