Damascus · booza
بكداش (Bakdash)
It is the shop the origin story of Arabic booza attaches to by name in every source found, Arabic and English, state press and Reuters alike, and it is the only Damascus candidate with a dated, named-byline account of still operating after the government that ruled Syria for the shop's entire modern history fell. Two independently reported forced closures on health grounds, both followed by reopening rather than by sale, are the strongest evidence of a family determined to keep the shop rather than cash out.
What we know
- Hand-pounded with metre-long wooden mallets and infused with sahlab (orchid-root flour) rather than churned — per Reuters, 10 December 2024: 'pounded by hand with metre-long mallets until it takes on a soft, stretchy texture'
- Co-owner Samir Bakdash told Reuters the recipe has not changed since his great-grandfather devised it in the 1890s, and reopened the shop the day after Assad fell as a personal statement of relief from a government that had 'forced him to pay bribes just to keep his shop open'
- Twice closed by Damascus governorate health inspectors on food-safety grounds (mixing Aleppo pistachio with a cheaper substitute, using powdered rather than fresh milk) and twice reopened — first in July 2017 (per alwatan.sy, 29 July 2017) and again in August 2018 (per alanbatnews.net, 24 August 2018), with the owner refusing repeated pressure to sell the shop
- Founding attributed to Mohammad Hamdi Bakdash in Souk al-Hamidiyah; the shop began as a lemonade stand before becoming Damascus's first and most famous booza seller, per eqtsad.net, 20 July 2017
- A $1-per-bowl price and a queue that in December 2024 included armed fighters fresh from the front line tucking sidearms behind their backs to eat, per Reuters
- Sourcing conflict recorded rather than resolved: founding year given as 1895 by Sky News Arabia (21 Feb 2022) and eqtsad.net ('122 years' as of July 2017), but as 1885 by alanbatnews.net (24 Aug 2018) and in the body text of the English Wikipedia article, whose own infobox says 1895
- Status
- open
- Address
- Souk al-Hamidiyah, between Bab al-Nasr and Bab al-Barid, Old City of Damascus, Syria
- Maker
- Founded by Mohammad Hamdi Bakdash (محمد حمدي بكداش); run for decades by his son Mowaffaq Bakdash (موفق بكداش), who died in February 2022; co-owned at the December 2024 reopening by Samir Bakdash (سمير بكداش)
- Opened
- 1895
- Last checked
- 2024-12-10
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