About this Nominee
It all started in Europe in the 80’s. Wally was abroad studying to become a dentist. Being away from his family in Lebanon, he missed home cooked meals. He started experimenting on his own and developed a passion for food. This led to multiple restaurants in Paris and Bulgaria.
In the early 2000’s, Wally decided to move to California to join his brothers and sisters to chase his own American Dream. He wanted to share his Lebanese culture and what better way to do so than through food. He opened multiple restaurants in Fremont and Capitola near Santa Cruz. Then finally in 2007, he opened Wally’s Cafe in Emeryville in the back of the Bank Club Cafe bar.
It was a crazy idea to open a restaurant that’s not visible from the street. How would people even find it? The locals loved the idea of a hole in the wall cooking up traditional homemade Lebanese dishes and they started spreading the word on Yelp.
Today, Wally’s Cafe is a 4-time Yelp Top 100 restaurant, coming in as the #6 restaurant in the country in 2025.
Wally's Cafe currently has 3 locations in California:
- Emeryville in the Bay Area near San Francisco and Oakland opened in 2007 and is our first location
- Rocklin in the Roseville area near Sacramento opened in 2017 and is our second location
- Costa Mesa in Orange County is our newest location and opened at the end of 2024 and is our third location
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