Mediterranean food is art at Yala Kol

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A new Mediterranean restaurant in Bowling Green represents a happy celebration of food for good times, where the cooking is a live performance.

Ata Abdel opened Yala Kol Mediterranean Grill on Nov. 1. The name means “Let’s eat!” in Arabic.

“I love cooking. I really love to cook,” Abdel said. “I love to have people just come in, then I have them, after the first time. Then they are trying to make their way through the entire menu, just to find their favorites, and they enjoy watching me cook.”

The menu is what Abdel would call popular street food, or what one might grab for a picnic at the beach.

Abdel casually cuts gyro meat with the skill of an artist, which is what he considers himself to be.

The most popular items are the shish kabobs, chicken galaba and chicken shawarma. He also makes his own hummus and a lemon mint smoothie that he called a bright and refreshing drink that goes well with any of the menu items.

His Holy Land Falafel is a very popular sandwich, especially with students who are running to class.

“We are trying to let the students eat something healthy,” Abdel said. “I thought this would be a good spot for Mediterranean food. There aren’t many local options.”

Abdel said that the traditional food is common from Greece to many Middle Eastern countries, including Turkey,

“I would love one day to be selling my garlic sauce in all the grocery stores, and maybe on Shark Tank,” he said.

His food art videos are popular on TikTok and their Facebook page. That’s where Abdel continues to push his cooking skills to the next level, always trying to improve the taste, look and even the cooking performance. It’s those performances that he encourages people to watch live, at the restaurant.

He said that it has been tough during the pandemic, but a steady stream of business has been coming in during afternoons and they have been very popular with the late evening and early morning crowd. They stay open until 4 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings, capturing that post-bar crowd.

For the next several weeks the opening special will continue. Abdel calls it Two for Tuesday, when the gyros are buy one get one free.

The restaurant is family owned and operated. Abdel is originally from Palestine, but has been working in the food industry in Northwest Ohio since the mid-1990s. This is the third Yala Kol restaurant, with the original location in Rossford and the second location in Lambertville, Michigan.

The restaurant has a small dining room at 1616 E. Wooster St., in the Greenwood Plaza, but they also offer catering, online orders and delivery through DoorDash and Grubhub.

Yala Kol can be contacted through their website, www.yalakol.com, or by phone at 419-806-4040.

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