At the Sixth-Annual Tri-Valley Iftar, our theme is food and faith with famed Bay Area chef and restaurateur Lisa Ahmad who shares her heartfelt and inspiring story of celebrating Ramadan as a chef and how she founded Fremont, California's renowned Mirchi Cafe.

Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam. The month-long holiday is a time to worship and to strengthen family and community ties. Each day, people don't eat from dawn to sunset. It's common for Muslims to have a pre-fast meal (suhoor), and to snack on a few dates at sunset followed by a post-fast meal (iftar), which is often shared with family and friends.

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This talk was delivered via the Muslim Community Center - East Bay (MCC East Bay) in Pleasanton, California. It was hosted at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Livermore on Sunday, March 24, 2024.

"Iftar" is the fast-breaking meal observed each evening at sundown during the holy month of Ramadan. The Interfaith Iftar Dinner is an opportunity for the whole community to join our Muslim friends for an evening meal as they break their Ramadan fast.

This is the sixth community Iftar in the Tri-Valley.

- Here was 2017: "What Ramadan Means to Me:"    • Video  
- Here was 2018 "Why Faith Matters:"    • Why Faith Matters | Tri-Valley Ramada...  
- Here was 2019 "Loving Across the Difference":    • Loving Across the Difference | Third-...  
- Here was the 2022: "Loving Across the Difference":    • Interfaith Iftar: Loving Across the D...  
- Here was the 2023: "Moses in Islamic & Jewish Tradition":    • Interfaith Stories: Moses in Islamic ...  

From Lisa Ahmad
Mirchi Cafe is my life on a plate. I was born and raised in the Bay Area and grew up in my grandparents Italian restaurant, Lucia’s, where I worked alongside and fell in love with my now husband of 30 years, Mush Ahmad, who was born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan. I remember the first time I saw our two worlds coming together. story 1 When Mush would feel homesick, he would incorporate Pakistani flavors into our Italian pizzas, and create something so foreign, yet so close to home. We would carry that creativity even further after my conversion to Islam and our marriage in 1991, when we traveled to Pakistan together for the first time. It was a magical time of discovery, from new cultures, flavors and my new family. When we returned to the United States, I enrolled in the California Culinary Academy of San Francisco and got my AOS degree in Culinary Arts. From there, I interned at La Patisserie Francaise, a French Bakery in San Francisco, where I worked with bread, cake, and pastries. This set the foundation for my future goals.

My grandparents played a big role in shaping my understanding of running a restaurant and supporting the community. Soon after graduation, my grandfather passed away, and though I had plans of working in other restaurant kitchens, I was pulled back to my roots, and took a management role at Lucia’s. In 2000, I took a break from my family's restaurant to pursue my own craft and opened my catering business, Sophia’s Delights, named after my daughter. In 2003, I returned to Lucia’s to support them, but after a year, we made a joint decision to close the restaurant after 28 years of business. This was the first time I did not have a restaurant in my life. I felt incomplete and that void created space for new ideas and energy. story 3 At one of our many family dinners, I proposed the idea of Mirchi Cafe and doodled a logo, which is still our brand to this day. All of these experiences led to the birth of Mirchi Cafe. To gain inspiration, I traveled back to Pakistan and immersed myself in the food scene. As a novice street photographer, I captured the love I had for Pakistan, and brought it back to the walls of Mirchi Cafe to share the beauty for all to see. We opened on September 1, 2004 and celebrated with a grand opening ceremony accompanied by Imran Khan, former cricket player and current Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Our menu focuses on comfort American classics with a Pakistani twist. I saw a gap in the Bay Area halal food scene offering mostly traditional cuisines and wanted to provide new possibilities for the Muslim community. Our motto became “100% Halal or Nothing at All” to give our customers the freedom and security to try new foods knowing it is halal. In 2013, we opened our second location in Dublin, California and in 2018 we opened Mirchi Meat and Deli, a Halal butchery, sandwich, and Pakistani grocery.

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