Mohammad Abutaha

Specialties Shawarmaji is the Bay Area's only Jordanian restaurant that brings Shawarma from the streets of Amman to California. This family-run establishment located in Uptown Oakland and Santa Clara honors the unique flavors of Amman’s most popular street food with its simplicity, and offers people from all walks of life to feel at home with its traditional Arab hospitality. History Established in 2020. Chef Mohammad Abutaha really missed the flavors of his hometown’s street food that he grew up eating, and saw a gap in the food scene for Amman-style Shawarma that he knew Californians would love as much as he does. After 10 years in the Bay Area without finding Shawarma that quelled his cravings and nostalgia, he decided that the only way to relive one of the best parts of his upbringing was to make it himself. In 2019, he bought a small spit and started experimenting. Upon hosting a few Shawarma dinners with friends, his brother Feras encouraged him to realize the potential of a family-run restaurant that would honor their home through its most popular street food, and the rest was history. Shawarmaji is Arabic for the title "Shawarma-maker"; the perfect name for the restaurant that would actualize the dream. Chef Abutaha's goal is to share his love for the meals that take him back home, and not just with fellow Arabs in the diaspora here, but with our entire local community.