The elegant blue-clad lady painted on the south side of the new Sabah’s House kiosk in Burlington holds a coffee cup. She looks pensively into the distance, crimson lips pursed, as doves rise like steam from the brew.
The design, by business founder and artist Sabah Abbas, would be less striking — but more reflective of what’s flying out of the kiosk — if the raven-haired lady were instead beaming over a foil-wrapped chicken shawarma.
Abbas’ 19-year-old son, Mustafa Khudaier, reopened the city-owned kiosk at the corner of Church and College streets in late June. (Leunig’s Bistro & Café previously ran the space as Leunig’s Petit Bijou.) In just a few months, Khudaier has built a serious following for Sabah House’s chicken shawarma wrap ($14).
Though matcha and coffee drinks ($5-7) also sell briskly, Khudaier said that on the food side, “Sometimes nobody orders anything but shawarma.”
The cylinder of thin, griddle-crisped pita encloses a generous amount of 24-hour-marinated and grilled boneless chicken wrapped up with French fries and briny, Middle Eastern-style pickles, all slathered with garlic mayo. Each bite bursts exuberantly with warm spices, juicy meat, tangy pickled cucumbers and creamy sauce.
Early on a recent Wednesday afternoon, Angel Court of Burlington was buying a shawarma wrap to take home for dinner. She had come downtown expressly to go to Sabah’s House for the third time since it opened, Court said, though she took the opportunity to buy a gift at nearby Tradewinds.
“The flavors are delicious,” Court raved. “It’s freshly made, and the spices are so good.” Her son, who lived in the Middle East before returning stateside to Vergennes, told her it’s “as authentic as he can get around here,” she added.
The Abbas-Khudaier family moved to Vermont 12 years ago as refugees from the Iraq War. With the help of her family, Abbas started a small catering business in 2019, doing pop-ups and selling food at the Old North End Farmers Market.
Her son has since taken ownership of the business, but “she’s the one with the recipes,” he told Seven Days after he landed the Church Street Marketplace lease in a competitive process earlier this year. “I always wanted this spot,” Khudaier said of the compact 135-square-foot kiosk.
The 2025 Burlington High School graduate was familiar with the corner from running the Sabah’s House food cart a few dozen feet away for two years. Khudaier continues to vend at festivals and other events and offers catering.
Sabah’s House currently opens at 10 a.m. every day except Monday, but Khudaier cautioned that made-to-order dishes, such as the shawarma, are not offered until noon. Orders can be placed online at the Sabah’s House website and through some delivery services.
Earlier in the day, the kiosk offers very good soft, pillowy handheld rolls ($7), filled with spiced chicken, beef, or spinach and a blend of cheeses, usually including feta.
Khudaier noted that every ingredient is freshly made “every single morning” in his off-site prep kitchen. In the kiosk’s small work area, he navigated around two employees to demonstrate how the team presses falafel balls from his from-scratch mix that starts with soaking dried chickpeas for 24 hours.
For a falafel wrap ($13) similar to the shawarma, the just-fried falafel balls are wrapped in pita with hummus, cucumber and turnip pickles, fries, and a sprinkle of zingy imported sumac before the whole bundle gets crisped up on the griddle. The well-flavored falafel is also sold as part of a plate ($15) with rice, fries and condiments. Sabah’s House also offers a shawarma plate ($18) and loaded fries topped with the marinated chicken ($15).
Another customer standing in line said she had eaten everything on the menu and spoke highly of the falafel wrap. Shawarma devotee Court, however, was not swayed.
“I’m kind of stuck on this,” she said of the shawarma wrap. “I’ll try other things eventually, but not right now.” ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “This Wrap Slaps | At the Sabah’s House kiosk in Burlington, the chicken shawarma dominates”
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