Afghan restaurant celebrates 50 years in Vancouver

An Afghan restaurant that has helped numerous refugees and newcomers in the past, is celebrating 50 years of serving authentic Afghan cuisine in Vancouver.

Owners of the Afghan Horsemen say while it is Canada’s first Afghan Restaurant, it’s also a place that has helped newcomers from Afghanistan settle in Canada, over the decades.

“Our customers, when they come, we feel like family. Most of them, the regulars, even you sitting here, you are so welcome, for us here,” said Ahmad Shah Yusufi, a manager at the Afghan Horsemen.

A man with a big heart and open arms, everyone calls Yusufi “Shah,” which is the Farsi word for “king.”

Shah has been the restaurant manager for 44 years and was taken on by the founders of the restaurant after he left Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war in the late 1970s.

“It’s good that this restaurant, that we managed to open a pathway for a bright future for us, our children, and many, many, many more refugees and newcomers that come from Afghanistan and to Afghan Horsemen. They all started from here,” said Razia Nasiri, co-founder and owner of the restaurant.

Shah says the founders sponsored a lot of families.

“They give them jobs here, they give them even shelter, and they start from here then studying something, they become lawyers, doctors, engineers. They did help a lot of people,” he said.

Running a restaurant isn’t easy to begin with, and after the attacks on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, the owners say business became especially difficult for a number of weeks.

“We heard some racist comments and we had to close the restaurant for a couple of days. (We got) prank phone calls, you know? We closed for a couple of days, and then we reopened, and our old customers still supported us. It was hard,” Nasiri said.

Shah and the Nasiris say they are the proudest of the spirit of support, reciprocity, and generosity this restaurant resembles.

“We treat our customers very well, and the food never changes, we try to keep the recipes the same. Razia started the restaurant with Zaher, her husband, and she put all the recipes herself here, and still, sometimes, she checks if anything has changed. And the customers are so regular, if something changes a little bit, they realize,” said Shah.