Omar Alsaadi is the co-founder and head chef of PITA CHIP, a Mediterranean fusion restaurant in Philadelphia. He grew up in Damascus, Syria before immigrating to the United States in the 1970s. 

While in college, he reconnected with one of his childhood friends and together they opened PITA CHIP, a Mediterranean fusion restaurant. Their first restaurant was built on Temple University’s campus. Eventually, they opened a second location in University City and have plans to open another in Yardley, Bucks County. 

Recently, they have begun serving a pita wrap called Malik al-Batata, which in English translates to King of Potato. It is a popular Syrian snack and has been dubbed “the Syrian” in the restaurant. The wrap consists of a Lebanese-style pita with French fries, pickles, onions, and spicy garlic sauce on top of chicken shawarma and roasted red pepper hummus. The wrap costs $14 and all proceeds from the wrap are being donated to the Nationalities Service Center (NSC) to help Afghan refugees. 

The NSC provides refugees and immigrants with valuable services and resources, such as legal help, health services, and English lessons to help them adjust and integrate into their new communities in the United States. It also helps them find housing and employment. The organization just celebrated its centennial on March 24 with its annual Global Tastes event, which celebrates diverse Philadelphia communities through a display of various cuisine and dance performances. 

Alssaadi has hired some of the refugees himself. He told 6 ABC News, “It was a win-win situation for all of us. There’s nothing like food that could bring people together.”