Angel Cafe & Deli sits at the northwest corner of Geary and Leavenworth, where the Tenderloin and Lower Nob Hill meet. It's been there since 2007, when it was opened by the parents of the current owner, Nagham.
Nagham's parents hoped to infuse a little Lebanese flavor into the neighborhood. “The food we have here is the same as back home,” he says. The falafel, shawarma and gyro all come from his mom’s recipes, while the tabbouleh salad and homemade lasagna are combinations of her recipes and Nagham’s own creations.
Angel Cafe's large menu accommodates diverse dietary restrictions, including breakfast bagels of all sorts, salads, wraps, vegetarian sandwiches, platters, gourmet sandwiches, deli sandwiches, and pastries, plus hot and cold drinks.
“We make everything here,” Nagham says, in short.
Beef shawarma wrap. (Photo: Angel Cafe & Deli/Facebook)
A hidden downstairs room toward the back of the cafe—where customers frequently spend hours studying or working—offers additional seating and added privacy. There is also a computer where customers can surf the web, scan, print, copy and fax documents. Should you find yourself in need of a quieter space, “we can always turn the music off if asked,” Nagham noted.
Nagham’s career in the restaurant industry began nearly a decade ago, when he helped his parents open the cafe. The Sunset resident was born and raised in Syria, working as an electrician and photographer before taking over the eatery. (He still does both when time permits.) His parents moved back to Syria, so he now runs the cafe with the help of his sister and one other employee.
When he isn’t running the cafe, he likes to visit his favorite spot, the beach, to talk to the ocean and “just sit down and think about everything.”
Nagham.
When you're at Angel Cafe & Deli, you're more than a customer. Nagham is more interested in exchanging stories than money for food. “Money is just a resource to help us live,” he says.
He cares deeply about building strong relationships with customers and calls them “my third family,” after his parents and siblings (“my first family”) and his work (“my second family”).
“Regardless of what issues I’m dealing with, I treat everyone with positive energy," he said. He and his customers "just talk and talk about anything and everything.”
Most of Angel Cafe's customers are working-class people or students who live in the neighborhood, and come in for coffee almost every day. But Nagham says he has seen a shift in the makeup of the neighborhood in the last four years, with the influx of young, single, wealthy tech workers. The cafe's proximity to downtown hotels brings in a lot of tourists too.
Homeless people wander in as well. “You can’t blame them," Nagham says. "We try to be nice and give them something to make them leave happy,” because he doesn’t want tourists to be scared away.
Looking forward, Nagham plans to hire more people to help with the busy summer season. He'll also be moving furniture around and staying open later. He's also constantly adding new items to the menu, and looks forward to seeing how the new chicken bacon avocado wrap sells.
Nearly every review on Yelp and TripAdvisor mentions the staff’s friendliness and Nagham’s smile, which seems to be a permanent fixture. “Life is too short to be sad,” he says. “I smile all the time because I’m always happy.”
