Bodega Owners Drop Anchor, Dream Big

Griffin Rose burst into Andalouse Freshop at 7:15 p.m. hunting for a post-filming calorie boost. Soon her arms were full.

She headed toward the back. ​“I’m on a snack mission,” she proclaimed to co-owner Ammar Chekhess when she returned to the front counter in the spotless, brightly lit shop at 96 Howe St.

In one hand she clutched three ice cream sundae cones and a pack of chocolate Pocky sticks. In the other was an assortment of party mix and potato chips. 

Rose, an actor and musician, lives next door. She’d just filmed a music video with a friend. 

“They got snacks because I asked for them,” she said breathlessly. ​“They literally did. Just niche snacks. I love snacks. I love snack hunting.” 

It was 7:15 p.m. on a Friday, and regulars were beginning to file into the grocery that opened during the pandemic and has become a neighborhood fixture since.

“This is what we try to do,” Chekhess said, once Rose had dashed out the door. ​“We stock whatever our customers need, and if we don’t have it, we’ll get it.” 

He and Moe Alshalpi opened the shop on Howe Street in February 2021. The two met a few years back while Chekhess was working as an Uber driver in New York. 

“Moe has the same kind of store in Brooklyn,” Chekhess said. ​“I used to stop in and buy drinks and snacks.”

On the wall near the exit sign hangs a picture with the word LATAKIA below Arabic letters. That’s the principal port city of Syria, and it’s where Chekhess’ family is from. Chekhess, 27, was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the youngest of four sisters and brothers. 

“My family came in 1989 for better opportunities, but they never got papers, so we went back to Syria in 2010,” Chekhess said. He was 15. A year later came the government’s brutal crackdown in response to the Arab Spring uprising. Chekhhess and his older brother went to the Arab Emirates. The rest of his family received refugee status in Dusseldorf, Germany. 

“I have American citizenship so I came here in 2015, and my family doesn’t, none of them, they were all born in Syria,” Chekhess said. He was 20.

There were stints as a dishwasher in a restaurant and at a deli counter in Park Slope. In 2020, a car accident ended his tenure with Uber. He started helping Alshalpi at his shop. Before long, they were talking about expanding. 

“New York, it is a lot of times a headache,” Chekhess said, as Arabic music played on the flat screen in the front of the shop. His best friend, Mohammad Rogaibat, lived in the New Haven area. ​“I liked it, New Haven. Then we talked, Moe and me, then someone told us about this store.

“We saw it. We saw the area. We liked it, quiet and clean. And we took the store.”

As he spoke, another customer entered.

“Waddup man, how are you?” he said, as Chekhess reached back for a pack of cigars. 

“Let me get one of those too, and one Z Palm,” he said to Chekhess. 

“No problem,” Chekhess said. 

“They’re cool people,” the customer, who identified himself as the ​“Black Jim Morrison,” said, greeting co-owner Alsalpi, who had just appeared at the door. ​“I come here all the time since they first opened. It’s just their persona. The way they come off, they blend with the neighborhood easy. People come in, they treat each other nice. That’s why I come in here.” 

“He comes in everyday, almost everyday, and he loves to smoke cigars, and Ammar knows the exact ones,” Alsalpi said as he joined Chekhess behind the glass partition. 

Alsalpi grew up in Amman, Jordan. He’s trained as a physical therapist. He opened a clinic in Amman in 2019. He was in New York when the pandemic started. 

“I was stuck in New York, because they closed my clinic in Jordan because of the pandemic,” he said. ​“They closed everything.” He opened a shop in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in March 2020. ​“We could keep it open because it was a convenience store, and that worked, and here we are.”

There was talk about the price of gas going back and forth to Brooklyn, the stock market and crypto currency, what was happening in Ukraine. 

“Putin is a very bad man, not only in Ukraine but in Syria too,” Chekhess said. 

Two kids pushed through the door, went to the back. They returned with cold drinks. They’d been playing basketball at the Y, one said. Another woman came in and bought a pack of Newports. 

The pair talked about their plan to open a juice bar in the next four months or so, maybe on Chapel Street.

“Fresh juice, homemade juice, healthy,” Chekhess said, adding that he plans to enlist the aid of Kristen Threatt and Brian Burkett-Thompson of the Eat Up Foundation, whose new line of New Haven-brewed lemonades sells at the store. ​“If someone wants to order healthy, I have that, and then I have sweet stuff like crepes and waffles.” 

Asked whether they were proud of having created a bustling business in the space of one year, the two grew silent. A siren sounded.

“If you look around this neighborhood, there is nothing like this,” Chekhess said. ​“People want some snacks, some cleaning stuff, water, milk, eggs. People like to grab their cigarettes…”

Then Alshapi cut in.

“This is not who we are,” he said. ​“I want to do physical therapy. That is what I was trained to do. But I have to get a different license and that takes three years, and I have no time for that.

“We don’t like having to sell people cigarettes and vapes, that kind of thing,” he went on. ​“We don’t like it, but we have to. If we don’t sell this, people will not come here.” 

“So that’s why we’re going to open the juice shop,” Chekhess said. ​“To do something more healthy.”

Chekhess said his wife, who is still in Syria, plans to join him here.

“I want to have kids,” he said. ​“Soon. I want to be with my wife, have kids, relax, have fun, that’s all. Not more than that. Very simple.”