For more than 35 years, Mezza Lebanese Kitchen has been part of Atlantic Canada’s culinary identity. And now it has its sights set on expanding into the Ontario market.
Known for authentic Lebanese food, Halal-certified offerings and the iconic East Coast Donair, the family-owned restaurant chain has earned a loyal following in Atlantic Canada now operating 24 locations.
And the brand will be opening its first two Ontario locations – in Ajax and in Windsor – in early 2027.
They will be the beginning of Mezza’s aggressive expansion into Ontario with more than 15 new locations planned across the province.
“The timing is right. We’re finally ready to do it properly. Over the last few years, we’ve really been building our own production centre here in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia,” said Peter Nahas who runs the company today with his brother Tony.
“We produce all of our own chicken marinades, all of our beef spices, all of our own sauces and all of our own pickled turnips. Now, being a federal plant, it’s a 15,000-square-foot plant that we’ve built over the last few years. Having that licence allows us to go from province to province and serve exactly what we did growing up in Halifax. That was the real impetus behind expansion.
“Ontario is obviously the biggest market in the country, and people know Lebanese food there, and they love Lebanese food. We’re not introducing something they haven’t seen before, but we’re certainly bringing our version of it and our family’s version of it.”
Transforming Mezza into an Atlantic Canada powerhouse
That version began in 1980 when their parents, who immigrated from Lebanon, opened a small restaurant in Halifax Shopping Centre. Tony and Peter grew up in the family business, bussing tables, learning the recipes alongside their parents and spending countless hours in the kitchen before taking over the company in 2012.
Since then, they’ve transformed Mezza from three Halifax restaurants into one of Canada’s fastest-growing Lebanese restaurant brands with locations across Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick.
“Every recipe tells part of our family’s story,” said Peter Nahas, Chief Concept Officer. “We learned from our parents that if you’re going to put your family’s name on the door, every meal has to make people feel cared for. That’s the Made by Mezza standard we’ve carried with us as we’ve grown, and we’re excited to finally share it with Ontario.”
“People often ask how we’ve been able to grow without losing what makes Mezza special,” said Tony Nahas, CEO. “The answer is simple: we never stopped making our food the way our parents taught us. That commitment has never changed, and it never will.”
The brand believes every customer should Eat Like Family!
The concept began in a food court and that original location remains open today.
Peter Nahas said Mezza will eventually look at growth in other provinces following the rollout in Ontario which is the company’s focus right now.
Standing out in a fast-casual market
“How do you stand out in a fast-casual market? One of the things we do differently than most across the country, and especially in Ontario, is that we have real Lebanese food from a real Lebanese family. I was born in Lebanon myself. My parents immigrated here in 1990. We’re not Mediterranean-inspired,” he said.
“It’s not trying to do something that we’re not born and doing at a Sunday dinner or Sunday lunch at my mom’s house. The production centre and that Made by Mezza stamp are truly what we stand behind. What we make is not assembled food. Our garlic sauce has certainly made us very famous.
“Once you try it, you’ll know why it’s famous. We still do things the right way we were brought up doing 35 years ago. I think it’ll be one meal at a time, getting people to try our food. But once they have a bite of Mezza, they’re going to understand why it is famous and award-winning over the last several decades.
“Our menu is actually very small compared with some other QSR brands, and that’s by design. Our main focus is our shawarma, our grilled chicken souvlaki, our Halifax donair, which is very authentic to this market but is also going to be a taste of something special for Ontario, and, of course, our falafels. And also our grilled steak. Between those products, those are really our staples and things that we can produce while still keeping true to how we did it authentically.”
Nahas said the brand has stayed true to what made it famous and what allowed it to grow. And that’s the food.
“It’s always been a balance of finding healthy, fast and affordable food, and I think that resonates with people, whether it’s in a good economy or a bad economy, whether it’s in Halifax or Ajax, Ontario,” he said.
“A family and a community that wants to dine out and eat together still wants something that is healthy, affordable and, frankly, fast, without it being fast food.
“I think that’s where we’ve positioned ourselves in that fast-casual market, particularly with authentically made Lebanese food. We really take no shortcuts in how we do it. If my mom or dad were to step into the restaurant, it would look pretty familiar to them. It’s been modernized, of course, but it’s still true to our roots.”
Made by Mezza food philosophy
The typical size of a Mezza location depends on the market. But its range is typically from 1,300 to 1,600 square feet.
“In terms of our markets, it’s no different from what we’ve built throughout Atlantic Canada. It’s really about finding the suburban markets, the supercentres and plazas, grocery-anchored, fitness-institution-anchored and financial-institution-anchored locations,” explained Nahas.
“We often look for what we call a seven-day business, something that’s driving traffic seven days a week. We’re certainly about being part of that community, somewhere that families can eat out.”
Made by Mezza is the company’s food philosophy, at the centre of its brand.
“It’s really the one thing that we learned as we were scaling and growing. It’s the one thing that brands were risking. With growth, brands would often take a lot of shortcuts, and we frankly went the other way. We built our own federal plant so that we could still do things ourselves,” noted Nahas.
“Our garlic sauce still uses fresh cloves that we make. Our chicken is still marinated in our family’s recipe. Our hummus still uses the same tahini from Lebanon that it did 35 years ago. We’re really still doing all that hard work. There’s a long list. Our turnips are grown specifically for us by a farmer in Nova Scotia . . It’ll be exciting to share that with our Ontario growth. It’s certainly a differentiator for Mezza throughout the market.”
A certain way of eating
Nahas explained that the word mezza, by definition in Arabic, means small plates.
“It means tapas-style, but it actually means a little bit more than that. The way we use it in a phrase is like, “Let’s go get some mezza.”
“What that means is it’s a way of eating. Our motto is “Eat like you’re family,” and that’s what having mezza is. It’s filling up a table with small plates and sharing all the food together. You’ll share your hummus, you’ll share your tabbouleh.
“When we launched Mezza in 2012, the idea of these sharing platters and large platters, like you see at restaurants today, didn’t exist. It was always one small plate for individual people, and that’s how people dined.
“Then sharing platters became way more common, thankfully. But that’s what mezza really means: how you eat together as a group, as a family. That’s why the “Eat like you’re family” motto is something we’ve carried for years.”
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