Kasbah Café, located at 39-19 Greenpoint Ave., opened Saturday (Photo provided by Halim Fekraoui)
June 15, 2021 By Michael Dorgan
A new Mediterranean café has opened on Greenpoint Avenue in Sunnyside.
Kasbah Café, located at 39-19 Greenpoint Ave., opened Saturday and is serving a range of pastries, sandwiches and homemade desserts.
Halim Fekraoui, a Woodside resident, co-owns the new café and it is his– and his business partner’s– first business venture together.
The pair have taken over a 900 square foot space on the same block as the elementary school PS 199 Maurice A. Fitzgerald. The space was previously occupied by a café and a spa prior to that.
The new café seats about 20 people indoors and there are four seats outside on the sidewalk with two tables.
The duo, who are both from Algeria, have revamped the space. They have painted the interior walls white and put down new gray wooden floors.
A new gray-colored awning has been erected. They have torn down the sun-faded pink awning associated with the spa that was left up by the operators of the former café. Fekraoui said they plan to add the company logo to the new awning in a few weeks.
“We wanted to create a welcoming place that serves Mediterranean-style food using the very best French bread,” Fekraoui said.
Fekraoui, 49, said the café sources its bread, croissants and Danishes from the renowned Balthazar Bakery located in New Jersey. Its bagels come from New York Bagels.
Kasbah Café offers hot and cold sandwiches as well as salads. It also has a breakfast menu that contains a variety of omelets.
Beverages include coffees, green tea, fruit juice and sodas.
The interior walls have been painted white and new gray wooden floors have gone down (Kasbah Café via Facebook)
Fekraoui said he decided to open the café after his pizzeria in Astoria was forced to shutter in September due to the pandemic shutdowns. Fekraoui co-owned Crostino Pizza & Pasta, located at 34-23 Steinway St., with a different business partner.
The new café is serving desserts like fruit tarts and cannoli that are made by Fekraoui’s confectionary company Hannah Sweets. The company typically sells the desserts to the local Algerian community at special events and to a restaurant in Manhattan.
Fekrauoi set up Hannah Sweets with his wife Hamina in 2015. Hamina works at the Kasbah Café and they have three daughters together. They are launching a new range of homemade cookies next week that will also be sold from the café.
The owners plan to offer delivery for all of its food and drinks items in the coming weeks via third-party vendors.
Opening hours are currently from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Sundays. The café will be open daily from 6:30 a.m. starting next week.
A croissant with a cappuccino (L) and tarts (R) (Kasbah Café via Facebook)
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