Sito's Catering

 Mikhail 'Mike' Khalil, owner and chef at Khalil's II was born into a farming family in Miklos, Syria. He still enjoys planting and tending crops, and it is not unusual for him to incorporate garden-grown herbs and vegetables into the dishes he serves.  His early life as a farmer has given him a good eye for quality produce and an ability to recognize when a fruit or vegetable is at the height of ripeness. In the 1950's he met and married his wife, Agnes, and immigrated to the United States. In 1960 he took on a job as a butcher for John Khoury, owner of Omar Kayyam's Restaurant on Baum Blvd. For the next twelve years, he worked hard in an apprenticeship at Omar Kayyam's and eventually became a full chef.

In 1972, Mike left Omar Kayyam's and opened his own restaurant, Khalil's, on Semple Street in Oakland. Khalil's soon became much more than a restaurant.  Not only was the food up to the standards of Omar Kayyam's, but the restaurant also featured impromptu floorshows and a warm, cordial environment.  Aggie, as Mike's wife came to be known, would circulate among the tables, sharing in peoples' joys, talking over their troubles and making introductions.  Customers would enter the restaurant as strangers and leave as friends, and all became part of an extended community 'family.' At Christmas time, Aggie would go out shopping for presents and throw a party for neighborhood children. It was her way of insuring that everyone in her corner of the world felt some joy in the holiday season.

And Khalil's was truly a family restaurant.  After school, the Khalil children, Tami, Zelfa, Mike, Leila and Dalel, would pitch in and lend a helping hand. They were often the wait staff, the host or hostess, the short order cook, the stars of the floorshow. And they all became very talented. Meanwhile at Omar Kayyam's, John Khoury had retired and his son Eddie had taken over. In 1977, Eddie came to Mike Sr. and offered to sell him Omar Kayyam's. They struck a deal and Mike Sr. took over the restaurant and opened it as Khalil's II. Keeping with family tradition, Khalil's II hosted a Greek Night every Friday and an Arabic Night every Saturday featuring ethnic music and dancing.

Following in Mike's footsteps, a number of his brothers immigrated to the United States and, after learning the trade at one of the three Khalil restaurants, went on to open their own restaurants.  In this way Pittsburgh was treated to a brief renaissance in the Middle Eastern restaurants. The Palmyra, the Balbek, the Sahara, the Mediterranean, the Beiruit, and Janet's café (today called Sharina's on Carson Street in the South Side) all came into being in this way. Today, the legacy continues with Baba D's on Forbes Avenue, The Campus Deli (formerly Sinbad's) on Semple Street, and Mango's in town (formerly a reincarnation of the original Sahara) continuing this trend into a new generation.

In 1979, Mike Sr. formed a partnership with one of his brothers and opened a third restaurant Beit el Khalil (the House of Khalil). Located at the corner of Forbes and Oakland Avenues in the heart of the Oakland business district, Beit el Khalil had a unique Arabic façade featuring a tiled exterior and arched windows. The interior featured specially imported Arabic furnishings.   In less than a year, Mike Sr. bought out his brother's share, and the Khalil family frantically ran three restaurants simultaneously.
 
In the early 1980s while in his late teens, Mike Jr. formed a partnership with a family friend and opened the Picasso. Mike has been his father's apprentice almost since birth. It is perhaps true to say that cooking comes to him more naturally than breathing. The Picasso featured not Arabic, but Spanish Cuisine. It was the first restaurant in Pittsburgh that featured the cuisine of Spain and specialized in dishes from the Basque regions of Northern Spain.  The Spanish connection began with regular 'Flamenco Nights' at the original Khalil's (which came to be fondly called 'Number One').

Without the aid of his son, Mike Sr. finally found the pace of serving as the principle chef at three restaurants to be physically exhausting. And so he closed first Khalil's on Semple Street  and then, about a year later, Beit el Khalil (which had come to be known as 'The Cafeteria'). In the process, he has made room for a number of new restaurants.  The Semple Street, location became The Oriental Kitchen for a time and is now the Korea Garden.  Beit el Khalil first became a Sheetz and a Hagen-Daas with Chicken Charlie in the basement.. Next Sheetz  became a Crossroads and then Metro Pizza. Chicken Charlie was replaced by Winner's Korean Restaurant which remains there.  Currently, you can find a GNC on Forbes Avenue in the location of the old cafeteria.  When the Hagan-Daas went out of business in the late 80s, Mike Jr. and his twin sister, Leila, opened Sito's Sandwich Cafe.

Even before it officially opened, Sito's started to draw a crowd.  The leading conception behind Sito's was to provide gourmet food, made from the finest fresh ingredients (nothing frozen, canned or prepackaged), at a fast-food pace and a fast-food price.  To prove that everything was of the highest quality, everything was made for the customer as they watched.  Customers may not have known it, but Leila and Mike had managed to incorporate the floorshow into the preparation of the customer's order. While Mike worked the afternoon and evening shift, Leila handled the extremely busy lunch hour when customer's routinely lined not only out the door, but up the street.  Khalil's on Semple Street used to draw similar crowds, but Leila and Mike had to literally barricade the door on a daily basis just so they could mop the floor after the lunch rush.

Mike Jr. soon became famous as 'Sitoman' and his interest in international flavors led him to be dubbed a 'Flavor Engineer.' It became customary for customers to walk into Sito's, ignore the menu, and ask Mike to fix them whatever he felt like making.  He developed his own mix of European, Mediterranean, Indian, African and Malaysian dishes, which he calls  'Indoeurasian Cuisine.' An example is the 'kibbeh-tikki' which combines the ingredients and cooking techniques of the Arabic kibbeh with that of the Indian tikki. Mike also has a touch of his father's farmer's blood in him.  He has a strong interest in organic farming, holistic healing, and the use of food as therapy.  His interests in this area led him, first, to develop an extensive vegetarian menu for Sito's and then to incorporate in it the area's first totally Vegan menu section.  Sito's thus became a Mecca not only for those interested in flavor, but also for those interested in healthy, wholesome foods.

In 1997, Mike Sr.'s mother died and his daughter Leila got married. This spelled an end for Sito's which Leila and Mike Jr. had named in honor of their grandmother ('sito' is 'grandmother' in Arabic).  Since then, Sito's has continued as the catering division of Khalil's II, allowing Leila and Mike free time to pursue other interests. Meanwhile in Oakland, Sito's influence can be found in the cuisine of such restaurants as The Spice Island Tea Garden and The Road to Karakash. The Sito's location next became a Tom's Diner and then Baba D's. When Baba D's moved onto Forbes Avenue, The Sushi Boat moved in and remains there today. Former employees at Sito's have gone on to careers in the food industry and have gone on to work in the areas most prestigious restaurants and to become founders of their own enterprises.

Sito's Catering had its start as the catering division of Sito's Sandwich Café when large take-out orders began to be placed. While simultaneously running the restaurant, Leila and Mike managed to personally cook and deliver catered meals for as many as 400 people (about the maximum that any local banquet hall can hold).  When Sito's closed, Leila and Mike continued catering on a casual basis through Khalil's II.  In some cases, Leila has also employed her talents as an interior decorator.  She has transformed living rooms into teahouses, backyards into Hawaiian Islands, park shelters into romantic, idyllic pavilions, and the banquet room on the second floor of Khalil's II into a host of different things.

Over the years, the Khalil restaurants have won numerous awards for providing a fine dining experience and have consistently been ranked among the top restaurants in the city. In the late 90s, a group of independent restaurant critics who spent an entire year conducting an in-depth study of Pittsburgh restaurants ranked Khalil's II in the top twenty of all regional restaurants.  Today, you can still enjoy a fine meal in an exotic setting at Khalil's II on Baum Blvd.  There is a banquet hall on the second floor which can seat 130, and Sito's Catering can provide the food for banquets at the location of your choosing.  On Friday and Saturday nights, Tami can be found working as hostess, and both Mike Sr. and Mike Jr. are likely to be there just about every night of the week. Stop in, we'd like to see you.