Saint Johners Embrace the New Uptown Freddie’s Pizza & Donair
SAINT JOHN – When Seif Bousif worked at Freddie’s Pizza and Donair in Moncton, people from Saint John who ate there when they were in town would always tell him to open one here.
“The customers were always asking me, ‘Why don’t you come to Saint John?’ Some of them would come in and buy five or six donairs – sometimes 10 at the same time,” says Bousif. “I’d asked them, ‘You guys having a big party?’ They said, ‘no, no, I have some friends in Saint John and they know I’m in Moncton. Please go to Freddie’s and get some donairs.’ “
Bousif took their advice and opened a Freddie’s franchise on Charlotte Street in uptown Saint John last week. Even though many Saint Johners had told him the popular Moncton restaurant would be embraced here, he was still surprised when they came out in droves the day it opened, and the same people kept coming out day after day.
He thought it would take time to build up a customer base, and that he would start slow with five to 10 customers a day.
“It was packed from the first day,” he said. “They were lined up outside the door.”
Bousif is an immigrant from Tunisia in northern Africa. He moved to Moncton to go to school in 2010, attending both Community College of New Brunswick there, and the Université de Moncton.
He also became a budding entrepreneur in the food business shortly after he moved here. He used to drive to Montreal and bring back baklava, a popular Middle Eastern dessert, to sell to restaurants in the Moncton area.
That’s how he met Fahed “Freddie” Doumani, who started the Freddie’s chain that has several locations in the Moncton area, one in Newfoundland, one in Amherst, Nova Scotia and now one in Saint John.
Freddie’s is known for its donairs, pizzas and shwarmas prepared with fresh ingredients. The portions are generous and the prices are relatively low. The service is also good and very fast, though Bousif may be initially challenged with the crowds descending on the restaurant in the first week. “But people have been very patient so far,’ he says.
“[The food] is all homemade,” he says. “The pizzas, donairs, shwarmas are all homemade, 100 per cent, which is what makes it a success.
“My goal here is the quality and the service – to be very fast and have high-quality food, and have good prices too.”
Bousif has worked at the Mountain Road location for the last two and a half years, and for the past year and a half, he’s been preparing to open a location in Saint John based on the customer feedback he received.
The 30-year-old credits the strong Freddie’s brand name and the social media buzz – in particular, Facebook – for his early success. He’s been in Moncton for years and doesn’t yet have a strong Saint John network, so when he posted about the restaurant opening on Facebook he wasn’t necessarily expecting a lot of people would take notice right away.
Within two hours he had hundreds of “likes” and shares. He had more than 1,300 shares on a Facebook post announcing the opening of the restaurant, more than 1,500 “follows” on the company page, and good reviews as well.
“I see the reviews on Facebook and everyone is happy with our service, happy about our food,” he says. “That makes all of the hard work worthwhile.”
The restaurant was so busy the first week, “Freddie” himself had to pitch in, driving back and forth from Moncton all week. “He was surprised too with how busy it was,” says Bousif. “He’s a very hard worker too.”
Doumani told Bousif he’d done right by the company name. “He’s very proud,” he says.
For now, Bousif is focused on establishing the Charlotte Street location. In the future, though, he plans to expand with potential locations on the east side of Saint John and in the Kennebecasis Valley.