TL;DR
Shah's Halal grew from a food cart into a global chain with 130 U.S. brick-and-mortar locations and 70 worldwide, offering an Afghan-inspired street food menu that's 100% halal. The company is vertically integrated and powers growth through franchising.
- Independent Restaurants \ \ Menu Talk with Pat and Bret is a collaboration between Restaurant Business senior menu editor Pat Cobe and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News. How Shah's Halal grew its food cart menu into a global chain Menu Talk: CEO Khalid Mashriqi oversees 130 U.S. brick-and-mortar locations and 70 worldwide, filling a void with an Afghan-inspired street food menu that’s 100% halal. []( Patricia Cobe, Bret Thorn July 21, 2026 LinkedinFacebookTwitterRedditEmail Shah’s Halal started out as a food cart on the streets of Queens in New York City in 2005, selling gyros and rice bowls with Afghan flavors. The simple menu used 100% halal ingredients, a rarity at the time, but the demand for halal food kept growing. Although the quick-service menu now is more extensive, it’s still very simple, said CEO Khalid Mashriqi during the podcast. Burgers, chicken sandwiches, wings, and falafel are options along with the rice bowls and gyros, and Shah’s differentiates from other Middle Eastern concepts by its focus on halal ingredients and signature sauces — some now available at retail. The company is vertically integrated, complete with a USDA-certified facility for processing meat and a commissary, which makes halal sourcing and preparation less challenging. Franchising is powering growth, although a number of locations are company-owned. Listen to learn how Mashriqi and his team intend to focus on expanding to smaller, more diverse communities, how Shah’s is partnering with a shawarma influencer to tell its story, and what’s next for the menu and the concept. Related: Joe Giacomino and John Vermiglio discuss Detroit's culinary evolution Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe on Spotify. Menu Talk is a collaboration between Restaurant Business Senior Menu Editor Pat Cobe and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News. You can subscribe to it wherever you listen to podcasts. LinkedinFacebookTwitterRedditEmail About the Authors []( Patricia Cobe Senior Editor, Restaurant Business Pat plans and executes menu, food and drink stories for Restaurant Business, covering food and beverage trends, Menu R&D, profiles of chefs and restaurateurs and Technomic research. She edits the weekly On the Menu newsletter and writes the regular Behind the Menu and Taste Tracker features. Pat hosts a weekly podcast called Menu Talk in collaboration with Bret Thorn of Nation's Restaurant News, covering a wide range of menu topics through interviews with chefs and operators. Pat came to Informa Connect from Hearst, where she was an executive editor. She is the co-author of the Mompreneurs series of books as well as two cookbooks. She graduated from Cornell University and earned a Masters in Journalism from Boston University. She is active in several professional organizations, including Les Dames d’Escoffier and the International Foodservice Editorial Council (IFEC), and serves as a judge for the James Beard Media Awards. See more from Patricia Cobe []( Bret Thorn Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News Senior Food & Beverage Editor Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality. Hi is responsible for spotting and reporting on F&B trends across the country for both publications. He is the co-host of a podcast, Menu Talk with Pat and Bret, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities, and other experts in foodservice operations. From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City. He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989. Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column. He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005. Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015. He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014. A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. Bret Thorn’s Experience: Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997 Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997 ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989 Education: Tufts University, BA in history, 1990 Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989 Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986 Email: bret.thorn@informa.com Social Media: LinkedIn: Facebook: Twitter: @foodwriterdiary Instagram:@foodwriterdiary TikTok: @foodwriterdiary See more from Bret Thorn Subscribe Nation's Restaurant News Newsletters Get the latest breaking news in the industry, analysis, research, recipes, consumer trends, the latest products and more. 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This story was originally published by Patricia Cobe, Bret Thorn in Nation's Restaurant News on July 21, 2026. Burnaze summarizes and links to the original reporting.
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