Call him Tom.
After moving from Jordan to New York City in 1989 at the age of 19, Haytham Khalil applied for a parking attendant job at a fancy restaurant. The manager stared at his application, then looked at him and said his name was too hard to pronounce. If he wanted the job, he'd have to go by "Tom" and shave his mustache.
He has kept the name ever since.
"I said, 'I don't care. Tom. John. Bob. I need the job,'" Khalil said. "So I went home. I shaved my mustache, and I came right back to work."
Khalil is now a co-owner of Times Square Deli Mart and Sahara Middle Eastern Eatery, two restaurants in the University area.
Khalil and his family have come a long way since they first arrived in the States. It took many hours of hard work and dedication, they said, and many times they felt like they were too tired to go on. But instead of quitting, they held on to one word: opportunity.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Khalil got his first taste of America at 16, when he stayed with relatives for a few weeks in New York City. He went home to Jordan a new man, complete with a pair of large sunglasses, a leather jacket and a boom box, like the "hip" guys in Yonkers, he said.
After that trip, Khalil knew he wanted to live in America. He saw an opportunity.
He wanted to own a business, something he thought wasn't possible in Jordan. Because in Jordan, he said, you're either born rich or you're not.
"'You know, I want to be something in the future' - back then, that's what I said to myself - 'because I am in the land of opportunity,'" Khalil said. "If I'm not going to do something here, I might as well go back to my country."
He began working through a long succession of odd jobs, saving money along the way. After parking cars at a restaurant, he drove a forklift for IBM. He then cooked at Burger King where he eventually became a manager. His last job before buying a deli was at Dunkin' Donuts.
"It was 1996. I just quit working for Dunkin' Donuts, and I said to myself, 'You cannot make it working for someone else,'" Khalil said. "It's good to have your own business."
By that time, he had saved $17,000. And that's when another opportunity came up: A friend of the family wanted to sell him a deli.
After borrowing $50,000, he bought Robbie's Deli, a small shop in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., no more than 2,000 square feet. He worked from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. By the time 2003 rolled around, he owned eight delis, capturing good reviews from the New York Times.
The journey wasn't easy, Khalil said.
"I learned you cannot get sick or tired. You cannot afford it. Pretty much, you marry your business," he said. "You cannot close your eyes and live."
To own a successful business, you have to know hard work, and you have please the customers, said Helen Nesheiwat, Tom's mother-in-law and co-owner of Times Square Deli Mart and Sahara.
"You have to be faithful to the customer, and you have to be very, very nice and generous to the customers, and I appreciate that, you know," Nesheiwat said. "I appreciate that very much. With all my heart I appreciate it. It's not just that I want to give you anything, and you give me your money, and you just leave."
Nesheiwat moved to the United States from Jordan when she was 12. In the early '80s, her sister opened a deli where she started to work. Business is in the family's blood, she said. Before moving to the States, her father owned a department store in Jordan.
If there's something she learned from her father, it's how to make friends with the customers. She watched many of her customers in New York grow up, get married, have kids.
"I know everything about them - I swear to God. If they come, you know, if they have a problem, I try to solve it," she said, "because I want the customer to be happy when he comes here."
Monir Nesheiwat, Helen's husband, wasn't planning to come to the U.S. He wanted to be a lawyer and was going to attend a college in Lebanon in 1975 when a civil war erupted and put an end to that dream.
So, he moved to the United States. His plan was to attend City College of New York City.
But first he had to make money to pay for school. Monir got a job in the fur business, a lucrative field at the time, he said. It was so lucrative that he decided to stay on board until around 1990 when the business started to slump, and that's when he started in the deli business.
"We love the business. When you love something, you make it good," he said. "Any job, you love it; you make it good."
Monir Nesheiwat met Khalil through family when they decided to become business partners - and eventually family themselves when Khalil married Monir's daughter.
Eventually, the family moved to Albuquerque because the weather is similar to Jordan's. In December 2007, they opened the Times Square Deli Mart. And less than a year later, they opened Sahara.
The family has big plans. Eventually, they want to open a Sahara restaurant in Santa Fe and on the West Side. But until then, they said they appreciate the opportunity they've been given.
"I feel good," Khalil said. "I'm very proud of myself and my family because, I mean, America is a beautiful place, and (you have) the opportunity to succeed if you want to succeed."
