Paradise roastery: Milwaukee business roasts nuts, coffee Arabic style

When you step inside Paradise Roastery LLC, 814 W. Layton Ave., you get a taste of what drives owner Ayman Saif.

Introducing the area's first Arabic style roastery, he opened his doors in August. Arabic coffee with a hint of cardamom is offered to everyone who enters, as his own personal welcome. Every day he roasts fresh coffee and nuts in-house.

Within the bright storefront, you’ll find an assortment of Turkish delight, indulgent nougats, chocolates including dark, milk and white chocolate with fillings ranging from hazelnut and cheesecake to Arabic ice cream. Dry roasted nuts come salted, unsalted and flavored, and he has everything from cashews, almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts to pumpkin, Irani and other seeds.

Spices, pickles, rose water and tahini are offered under the Paradise Roastery label, printed in both English and Arabic. Middle Eastern coffee sets and specialty gift items are all on hand. Definitely look behind the counter and check out the boxes of date cookies lining shelves, just one of the many sweet treats Saif calls his favorite.

He lives in Franklin with his wife and seven children.

Paradise Roastery is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.

It is an art. I’ve been doing this a long time, since I was 16.

Between school from year to year, in summertime I looked for a job. One was at a roastery business in Jordan, when I was 16. I liked it, so I stayed. I started as one of those workers, just cleaning in the factory. I liked it.

There was an older Lebanese man, he taught me how to do everything. They used to do a lot, like 1,500 kilograms per day. Every kind of nut is in front of you many times per day. That helped me to learn it fast. It was a summer job that has continued till this day. I stayed there 11 years moving from one area to another.

Finally, in 2000 I opened my own business (in Jordan) with two partners working with me. One was responsible for the market, the other was responsible for buying things, and I roasted things.

In 2017 I sold everything and moved to the United States. My wife's family is here. It was a very hard decision to sell the factory and come here. I started working with cellphones, now my children are in college. I’m here for good. I opened Paradise Roastery in August 2021.

The dry roasting is different from what they know already. It is all fried everywhere, they fry by oil. This way is healthier. We use stainless steel drums, fire underneath, and the salt. We do cashews, almonds, pistachios, pumpkin and other seeds. … All of it is done in house.

It was not easy to import all these machines, all these kinds of raw nuts. Especially through the coronavirus we had to wait to get the permits and shipping. It was more than a year of planning until we opened. I went home in January 2020 and started visiting factories, the chocolate factories, the nougat factories, the nut factories, the

flavor factories. I spent a lot of time moving around, 36 days. I knew all of these places and people for years, and I knew which were the best.

I sell a lot of Turkish coffee, a lot of chocolate, and Turkish delight. People also really like cashews, almonds and the deluxe mix.

I like to see customers like the coffee. This is my passion. I keep improving things and myself. It is just me and the machine. There is no recipe. I improved everything by myself through the years. There is no perfection, but I’m doing my best.

It is not about the money, I want to see my customers appreciate what I am doing. It makes me happy.

The Turkish delight is made the same as it was 150 years ago. It is well known in Jordan and the Middle East, so I thought it would be good to bring here. It is a bit like the nougat, they use honey and you can cut it by smaller pieces, by bars, by the pound. Nougat comes individually wrapped. The Turkish delight is softer and more chewy

than the nougat.

I like anything with chocolate. The chocolates come from four factories in Jordan, but my name is on every piece. I know these companies and the chocolates since 1989. These are my friends there.

They want me to succeed because they have known me for so many years.

We do all the labels, the small details. People like dark chocolate, some like white chocolate, some like only milk chocolate, some like with pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts in it. We want to satisfy everyone, so we brought 36 different flavors.

We roast fresh daily, and we sell the coffee beans and we can grind them here. We roast about 18 pounds, small batches. From 10 to 25 pounds each time is what I can do, but I keep it smaller for the freshness. The Turkish coffee, I want to do that here. It takes more time. I have to learn the rules in the city, we are still new.

I want people to try our sweets, the nuts, spices, our zaatar. I think it is good. I give samples of everything. My way to say welcome is to give an Arabic coffee, just a small cup.

Arabic coffee is available and served from the morning to night, just my way to say welcome. It is just cardamom and coffee, without sugar and without cream. This is Arabic coffee. Many people like it, and they then take a pound of my roasted beans and I grind them. I explain how to do it with the cardamom. I sell the cardamom as well.

Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email [email protected].