![\"A](\"https:\/\/platform.austin.eater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2025\/12\/Salams-3288.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100\")
<\/a><\/p>\nHummus. from Salam\u2019s. Cat Cardenas<\/p>\n
Already, Hammad has regulars who come to the truck every week and it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise because restaurants are in his heritage. His parents, Nuha and Jihad Hammad, are the duo behind the Middle Eastern eatery Peace Bakery in North Austin, which has been operating since 2014. Along with his four siblings, Hammad grew up around the kitchen, helping out after school, and learning the ropes of the industry.<\/p>\n
Growing up, his family had a larger kitchen that was kept clean for meals and another, smaller kitchen where all of the cooking was actually done. There, he would spend hours watching his mom prepare food. \u201c[My mom] would give me a spoon, and I would just start tasting and trying things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hammad tried out his own recipes and attempted to recreate dishes he saw from television cooks like Gordon Ramsey and Martha Stewart. But it wasn\u2019t until a teacher his junior year of high school set up a Zoom call with a chef from the Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio that he actually considered pursuing it as a career. He enrolled in the CIA after high school, and graduated from the program in 2024. Later, when he went back to Peace Bakery, he felt like something was missing.<\/p>\n
Salam\u2019s Grill also has mango mint drinks. Cat Cardenas<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like a void almost,\u201d he says. \u201cMy dad always says that the family restaurant is ours, but it\u2019s not really mine. It\u2019s not my dishes, my techniques, my staff. I wanted to make something that was mine.\u201d<\/p>\n A brick-and-mortar operation seemed out of reach, so he and his brother, Ali, decided to pool their resources and buy a food truck. For five months, they dedicated themselves to building it out, developing a menu, and customizing it to their needs. With years at Peace Bakery under his belt, along with previous stretches at Uchiko and Odd Duck, Hammad quickly learned that a food truck was a totally different beast.<\/p>\n By hosting pop-ups throughout the summer in the run-up to opening in October, the brothers had managed to work out most of the kinks. They got their order times down, found their rhythm in the confined space, and pared down their menu to their most popular dishes, leaving room for experimentation with limited specials, like their spicy fried corn ribs dusted with sumac and Turkish coffee-infused hot chocolate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe specials are kind of like my playground,\u201d he says, \u201cthat\u2019s where I get to introduce people to more of a fusion of flavors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n