In the business world, the first golden rule is that the customer is always right. So when Taher Jaber, owner of Harmonie Garden Cafe, began getting tons of requests to move back to his old stronghold at Wayne State University in Detroit, it was almost as if he had no choice but to listen to the customers.
Jaber's restaurant began in 1993 at Harmonie Park closer to downtown Detroit. He moved to Wayne State and was there until 2004. Back at Harmonie Park until 2009 he began getting all the requests to move back to campus.

Now he's in the new location on the site of the old Tapper's Bar building. And this time around, he brought plenty of falafel sandwiches with him. The long-time owner and Middle Eastern food connoisseur gave out more than 600 of the sandwiches on New Year's Eve, 2010 as part of the grand opening of his new Midtown location at 4704 Anthony Wayne Dr. in Detroit.

Customers on campus have especially welcomed a healthy restaurant in the area. Now that the location has become well known to customers, thanks to word of mouth, Jaber has flourished. Harmonie Garden was recently given a "Best of Detroit" award in the Middle Eastern restaurant category by the popular Metro Times publication.

The original goal of the falafel giveaway for Jaber was 1,000 sandwiches, but inclement weather held his plan back a bit. Still, once word got out on campus, customers started walking up in groups of 5-10 to see what all the fuss was about.

“First of all, I want to say that I really appreciate all the customers here and that's why I wanted to come back to campus and have a day like this,” Jaber said.

“I want everybody on campus to taste the real stuff, we make our falafel from scratch with all the right spices like they have in the Middle East and that's what we want to bring to the students.”

Jaber is so fond of falafel that he even has a license plate sporting the popular dish's namesake which has drawn some people to pull him over to take pictures with it within the city of Detroit.