De Babel, the Scottsdale restaurant that climbed to No. 3 on Yelp's national Top 100 list, opened a second location Tuesday about four miles south of its original Airpark spot — and this one comes with a built-in halal market. The new outpost sits inside The Edge shopping plaza at 8980 N. 90th St., #124, a short drive from the original restaurant at 14884 N. Pima Road.
Founder Marwan Kandeel said the goal was to grow without losing what made the first location a local favorite. “The expansion protects what guests already love and builds a better experience around it,” Kandeel said, according to Phoenix New Times. The new spot keeps the original menu intact while adding room for guests to linger, including large patios, and everything is still made to order.
Kandeel, who spent 25 years running major international food brands across the Middle East — including stints with Cinnabon, Seattle's Best Coffee, and regional operations for Five Guys before landing in Arizona — brought that operational background to De Babel when he opened it in a North Scottsdale strip mall near Pima Road and Raintree Drive back in July 2021, according to ChowNow. He managed brand expansion across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, per the same account, before shifting his focus to the Valley's fast-casual scene.
A Menu Built By a 25-Year Veteran
The kitchen is led by Chef Suliman Saleem, a 25-year veteran of Middle Eastern cooking who blends traditional recipes with modern fusion twists, as reported by PHOENIX Magazine. That menu carries over to the new location, with gyro and chicken tawook sandwiches served on fresh pita, lamb tikka and chicken shawarma dinner plates, smoky baba ghanoush, silky hummus and vibrant tabbouleh, fresh juices, and dairy-free tahini ice cream.
The pita itself is something of a signature detail. De Babel imports its specialty pita bread directly from a 102-year-old bakery in New York to nail the texture, and PHOENIX Magazine notes the restaurant packages its pita sandwiches in paper sleeves styled after French newspapers. Kandeel said the new location is meant to create a fuller dining experience while staying true to that identity. “The new location creates a more complete experience while remaining true to De Babel's identity,” he said.
Halal Market Joins the Restaurant Floor
Alongside the dining room, the new location will house a Middle Eastern market stocked with fresh cheeses, tahini, pickles and gluten-free options, plus kosher-certified packaged products. The restaurant side will remain strictly halal, and De Babel says it will keep serving the consistent flavors its guests already know.
The retail addition lands as metro Phoenix's halal dining scene keeps growing more visible. Local tech entrepreneurs launched dedicated digital discovery tools in 2024, including the Scottsdale-founded search app Halalify and the media outlet AZ Halal Eats, to help diners sort through confusion between Mediterranean-style menus and certified halal options, according to Phoenix New Times. Nationally, the halal food market was valued at $733.6 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $1.62 trillion by 2034, per IMARC Group, with growth driven by demographic shifts and rising adoption among non-Muslim consumers drawn to perceptions of hygienic preparation and ethical sourcing.
From Strip Mall Hit to Regional Ambitions
De Babel's rise on Yelp's national rankings helped set up this expansion. The restaurant made Yelp's annual Top 100 Places to Eat list for four consecutive years, climbing from No. 14 in 2024 to No. 3 nationwide in 2025 — the top ranking of any restaurant in Arizona that year. Hoodline previously noted De Babel's 2024 debut on that list, and later covered its continued climb in a 2025 roundup of national standouts.
Ahead of the second location's opening, De Babel built a new central kitchen and commissary facility to handle daily prep work and keep recipes consistent across locations, a setup intended to support future Valley expansion. The brand also leaned heavily on direct ordering rather than third-party delivery apps, generating more than $1.1 million in commission-free online sales between 2022 and 2026 through platform partner ChowNow by deliberately limiting third-party marketplace channels.
The Edge, the development hosting the new location, is a 212,000-square-foot Class A mixed-use project at 90th Street and Loop 101 co-developed by Palmer Development Group and Diversified Partners, according to Greater Phoenix In Business Magazine. The broader $160 million district includes other major retail brands and a planned Hard Rock hotel project nearby, per the outlet.
