The Overcast's Chad Pelley wrote about Mohamed Ali's uphill battle to start a restaurant in Newfoundland. Read an excerpt from the story in December's The Overcast issue below: 

The story of Mohamad Ali’s restaurant starts with a war in Iraq and ends in Newfoundland hospitality.

While quite young, Ali and his brother started a small food table at an outdoor food market in Iraq, selling hummus and pastries and pizzas. And then the bombs fell. Their business was quashed as quickly as it began during the invasion of Iraq by American military forces. Baghdad, where Ali’s operation was set up, was facing full-on air strikes. Ali spent the next four years of his life in a refugee camp, and the sandstorms were worse than our snowstorms.

Eventually, Canada took him in, and at twenty-five years of age, Ali enrolled in English classes in St. John’s, while working three part-time jobs to support himself. He noticed the lack of Middle Eastern food here, and the demand for healthy alternatives to fast food. But the bank rejected his plan to open a restaurant, citing the volatile nature of establishing a new restaurant. Instead of giving up, he made plans for a food truck downtown, from which he’d save up money to launch his restaurant.

In 2010, he bought a food truck; one that even a city inspector said was so top-quality he wished the other trucks in town would come by and see. Yet, after acquiring his insurance and certifications, and after investing $25,000, the city repeatedly shot down every plan he made, because unlike the other food trucks downtown, that only use propane tanks to deepfry fries, Ali needed refrigeration, and the city objected to the truck simply metering off a pole on the sidewalk as food trucks do worldwide. (It had to do with fears his truck would interfer with snowclearing, though Ali said he’d shovel around his truck himself.) He offered to use a generator, but council denied him, worried the noise pollution wouldn’t be okay. Despite the fact they’d be on George Street. It was then that the owners of The Sprout Restaurant stepped in to help. At this time, that was Julia Bloomquist, who offered to run an extension cord out to the truck. There was a loading zone he could park in after hours. But again, the city called it a tripping hazard, even though Ali offered to suspend the cord.

Read the full story on page 12 of The Overcast's December 2016 issue.