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The Pita Shop, a locally-owned family business started by husband and wife Omar and Susan Aldmour, has expanded its restaurant after 4 years.
Susan and Omar Aldmour met at San Marcos’ old Cedar’s Cafe, a downtown Mediterranean restaurant that used to be located on the block where The Local is now. Susan started working at Cedar’s in 2006 and Omar’s uncle owned the cafe. When Omar moved to San Marcos from Jordan to work on his Master’s degree, he also started working there. And that’s where their story, as well as the Pita Shop’s story, began. They went on to get married and now have a daughter named Emily, But the Cedar’s Cafe was knocked down to make way for The Local. And the Aldmours found themselves without jobs. Then they both found themselves in jobs they weren’t happy with.
“We both did different jobs after Cedar’s closed. But we both really did not like our jobs,” Omar Aldmour said. “And we said ‘you know what, we’re both good at cooking’ — she did that for eight years at Cedar’s, I did it for six years — so we said ‘we’re going to get back to it.'”
In March of 2015, they started looking for a place and that’s when they stumbled across a “For Rent” sign in the shopping center on Ranch Road 12, next to Gray Horse Saloon. By September 2015, they officially opened The Pita Shop for business.
The Pita Shop has grown since it opened its doors 4 years ago. Its delicious and authentic menu paired with affordable prices and friendly service made it a magnet for regulars.
The Pita Shop specializes in Mediterranean cuisine like gyro pitas with roasted beef and lamb, lettuce, tomato, onion and a drizzle of tzatziki sauce; falafels served with tahini and hummus with pita. Daily Record file photo by Denise Cathey
Before the expansion, it had seating for approximately 20 people inside the restaurant, meaning on busy days sometimes patrons were pushed out — something that pained the Aldmours to see.
“We get pretty busy during lunch sometimes, and we would have customers that wanted to sit down, but all the tables would be full and they would have to go or sit outside in their cars, and that kind of hurts us,” Susan Aldmour said.
The new expansion not only more than doubled their seating area — from 20 seats to 45 to 50 seats — but it also added an ADA bathroom, an office and a good amount of storage.
“Now we have space for bigger groups to come in,” Susan Aldmour said. “We can put tables together and we now have larger tables for business meetings, parties or just lunch.”
They have also hired five new people to help run the restaurant — though if you call, it will almost always be Omar that answers the phone. But even with all the growth, the family feel and customer service they provide still remains front and center.
“We want guests to feel comfortable and to want to always come back,” Susan Aldmour said, “that’s very important to us. We try to instill that in everyone we hired, to just be nice to people and people will react to that. Something so simple makes a big impact.”
The Pita Shop will be holding its grand opening for the new expanded restaurant on Friday, June 28 during normal hours.
The Pita Shop, located 1904 Old Ranch Road 12, is closed Mondays, open from 11 a.m.- 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11 a.m.- 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, thepitashopsmtx.com.
