A Lebanese family changed the Middle Eastern grocery game in Arizona

At the Baiz Fresh Foods in Mesa, the smell of chicken roasting on a spit greets customers as they walk in. A restaurant occupies one corner of the market, serving up kebabs, hummus plates and falafel. Rows of pistachios, almonds and walnuts gleam behind a counter in the bulk nut section.

One worker offers samples of freshly made labneh and feta, and another weighs out cuts of meat, from goat leg to lamb tongue.

Zoubayda Merhie perused the deli section with her young daughter. She started shopping at Baiz Market over a decade ago at the original location in downtown Phoenix on 20th Street just south of Roosevelt Street. Back then, it was one of the few places where she could get everything she wanted — halal meat, fresh bread, snacks from Lebanon — in one trip, unlike at other, smaller markets.

Now, it's far easier to find staples of Middle Eastern cooking in metro Phoenix, due in no small part to the efforts of Jimmy Baiz and his two brothers, who opened their first Phoenix market in 2005 and have since expanded to become the largest local Middle Eastern grocery chain in the Valley.

"This one is special," Merhie said. "We love it."

Grocery stores didn't have what they needed

When the Baiz family immigrated to Phoenix from Lebanon in the late '90s, they struggled to find basic food staples. There were a smattering of small Middle Eastern markets, but they didn't offer fresh pita bread. The only halal meat was frozen.

The family found out that they could go to some small farms and slaughter their own animals in the halal way, as long as they didn't sell it in stores. Baiz knew how to slaughter animals because he grew up on a farm in Lebanon with apple orchards, lambs, goats and sheep. As a young adult, he remembered going to the metro Phoenix farm, slaughtering a lamb and processing it the halal way, which involves killing it in a humane way, blessing the animal and draining all the blood.

"We'd use it for like a month," Baiz said. "It was hard to get halal meat."

He and his brothers Sam and Ed initially worked in gas stations and mechanic shops. They decided to open a market after seeing the need for more fresh Middle Eastern groceries in the Valley.

Although their childhood on the farm had taught them how to cook and prepare meat, they knew nothing about the grocery business. So, they taught themselves everything, from baking bread to applying for health permits to ordering produce.

"It was difficult at the beginning," Baiz said.

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Finding the perfect pita recipe

The brothers wanted to make as much from scratch as possible. They created their own spice blend for the shawarma sold in the restaurant. They made their own filo dough for baklava and other sweets sold in the bakery.

It took them a while to perfect their pita bread recipe. They tested recipes, trying to find the right flour blend and length of resting time to compensate for Arizona's dry climate. Pita bread needs a certain humidity level to achieve its soft, chewy texture.

"The pita bread is very sensitive. It's not like any regular bread," Baiz said.

Now, Baiz Market's pita bread is one of its most popular items. The various locations sell so much pita bread that it's made at a factory in Phoenix and delivered to each store daily.

The market also offers bundles of fresh herbs and huge stacks of dates from Yuma, which are especially popular during Ramadan, Baiz said.

Baiz is proud to feed his community

Over the decades, the population of Arab Americans in Arizona has grown. From 2000 to 2022, it expanded by 19%, to around 77,000, according to the Arab American Institute .

Customers asked Baiz to open a market closer to where they lived, so in 2016, the brothers obliged, opening the Mesa store. They opened a third location at 27th and Northern Avenues in Phoenix in 2019, and plans are in the works for another store, Baiz said.

And despite a proliferation of other Middle Eastern markets in metro Phoenix, Baiz's business remains strong.

"It doesn't matter if you have a lot of competition or not, but if you love what you're doing, you'll be successful," he said.

After all these years, what he's proudest of is that his family has been able to create a one-stop shop where the Arab American community can get halal meat, bread, vegetables and whatever else they might need — a far cry from his experience when he first moved to Arizona.

"Food is kind of an art," Baiz said. "It's not just a business."

Reach the reporter at reia.li@gannett.com . Follow @reia_reports on Instagram .

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Baiz international market changed the grocery game in Phoenix