{"id":200646,"date":"2026-05-23T12:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T12:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/200646\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T12:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T12:16:10","slug":"new-restaurant-to-replace-the-former-ayat-in-allentown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/200646\/","title":{"rendered":"New restaurant to replace the former Ayat in Allentown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new restaurant will celebrate its opening just in time for Memorial Day in Allentown, replacing the now-closed Ayat.<\/p>\n<p>Breeze Mediterranean <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/p\/17M64wPY8B\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a> it will hold a soft opening at 11 a.m. Monday at 1243 W. Tilghman St., ready to serve Mediterranean &amp; Middle Eastern dishes.<\/p>\n<p>Owner Ahmed Nhele said he previously owned Mama Nina\u2019s in Bethlehem for 13 years until he sold it about two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>With a good friendship with his Allentown customers, he said, \u201cThey always asked me to open another branch in Allentown. I said, \u2018Guys, Allentown and Bethlehem, that\u2019s too close, so no need to open another branch. And then when I got this opportunity here at this location, I said, \u2018I\u2019m going to try something different.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n<p>Dishes at Breeze Mediterranean will include kebabs, salads, gyros and Italian dishes like chicken Parmesan and spaghetti.<\/p>\n<p>The restaurant will operate 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Sunday for the first week, and then will operate Tuesday through Sunday for the same hours after that.<\/p>\n<p>The restaurant will also eventually have a grand opening, Nhele said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcall.com\/2025\/11\/10\/ayat-restaurant-chain-closed-in-allentown-the-new-york-times-palestinian-cuisine\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ayat,<\/a> a Palestinian-cuisine restaurant chain, opened in 2023 at the property. Signage visible in November at the entrance announced the restaurant\u2019s closure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new restaurant will celebrate its opening just in time for Memorial Day in Allentown, replacing the now-closed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,60,182,435,436,289,432],"class_list":["post-200646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-business","tag-local-news","tag-restaurants-food-and-drink","tag-retail","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}