A longtime West El Paso Mediterranean kitchen is coming back to life, but not quite the way it left. Farah's, previously known as Farah's Mediterranean, opens its doors to the public from 3 to 9 p.m. on Sept. 15 at 1071 Country Club Rd., Suite C, with owner Edward Farah running the operation primarily as a commercial commissary kitchen rather than a traditional sit-down restaurant.
The new setup, first reported by El Paso Inc., still offers public pickup and casual dine-in alongside daily specials pulled from the catering menu. The commercial commissary kitchen powers Farah's long-running corporate catering business, which now stretches well beyond the Mediterranean staples that built its reputation. Farah explained the name change to the outlet this way: “It used to be Farah's Mediterranean, but because we also do Italian, French and all kinds of other foods for catering ... now it's just Farah's.”
Diners can still expect the dishes that made the original spot a Westside favorite, including wraps in house-made saj bread, hummus, kibbeh, and tabbouleh. The catering menu has expanded considerably, though, folding in brisket, braised meats, and other Italian dishes alongside the Mediterranean staples. Third-party platforms have distributed pre-packaged group meals under a “Farah's Feast” banner, supplying Middle Eastern and Italian platters across El Paso, per ezCater.
A Return After a 2023 Closure
Farah's reopening comes after the business closed in 2023. Before the rebrand, the restaurant operated for years as Salma Farah's Mediterranean, first at 4126 N. Mesa St. starting in 2009 and later at 126 Shadow Mountain Dr. in West El Paso, according to OK Gourmet. The eatery earned local recognition well before its hiatus: back in April 2019, Hoodline named Salma Farah's Mediterranean one of the top five Mediterranean dining spots in El Paso based on customer reviews, spotlighting favorites like the restaurant's hummus and fatayer.
The Farah name itself carries weight in El Paso beyond the restaurant business. It traces back to Farah Manufacturing, founded by Lebanese immigrants Mansour and Hana Farah in 1920, which grew into the city's largest civilian employer and shaped the region's industrial history, as Hoodline detailed in its mountainside mansion history.
Moving Into a Former Pizza Spot
The new location at 1071 Country Club Rd., Suite C, previously housed Nick's Pizza, a local pizza restaurant that operated at the storefront until its own closure in September 2023. That address sits inside River Run Plaza, an Upper Valley commercial strip that also hosts the weekly Country Club Farmers Market, positioning Farah's near an established stream of local foot traffic and community activity.
West El Paso has long served as something of a hub for Levantine dining, with a concentration of Mediterranean restaurants clustered along the North Mesa Street corridor. Farah's return adds another entry to that culinary landscape, even as its business model shifts toward supplying corporate clients as much as walk-in diners.
Open Questions Around the New Model
What remains unclear is whether the commissary space will eventually lease prep capacity to other food vendors, and how the expanded catering menu of Italian and French dishes and braised meats will balance against the restaurant's Mediterranean roots going forward. Commercial catering kitchens operating from fixed facilities in El Paso are required to secure a Fixed Food Establishment Permit from the local health department and undergo routine sanitation inspections. That local oversight now operates alongside a broader statewide shift: as of July 1, mobile food unit licensing and commercial food vendor oversight across Texas moved from local city health departments to the Texas Department of State Health Services, standardizing permitting rules that commissary-style operations like Farah's must now navigate.
