"The Feta Cowboy is pita meets tortilla," says Bassel Osmani, who opened Pita Jungle with his friends from Arizona State University in 1994. "It's carne asada meets shawarma. It's wraps meets tortas."
The aim is to combine the health factor of Mediterranean food with the kick and flavor of Tex-Mex.
Osmani hopes to host a soft opening for friends and family before the end of the year and a grand opening in January. The restaurant will be located on Warner Road and McClintock Drive in Tempe and seeks to cater to ASU students and young professionals.
"I have kids of that age, and they would never go and sit in a restaurant," Osmani says. "But they have no problem going to an assembly-line type of place and pick(ing) up something to go or ordering it for delivery or even eat(ing) it there."
For those who prefer to simply pick something off the menu rather than create something custom, Osmani is finalizing about a dozen signature items. As for what the dishes will be called, "we are at the final stage of doing the nomenclature on all these things," he says.
Restaurants where customers go down the line and pick their ingredients seem to be the way of the future, Osmani believes, especially in the Valley.
"The way things are going economically, with the cost of occupancy in Phoenix and with the cost of labor and all that, these smaller-footprint models work best," he says. "This is a proof-of-concept, so we're not sure — we may, six months down the road, change it to an over-the-counter model."
Feta Cowboy
Opening in January1840 E. Warner Road, #108, Tempe
