Falafel News
New York's oldest falafel shop closes Dallas location at West Village
A chain that claims to be oldest falafel restaurant in New York didn't last a year in Dallas: Mamoun's Falafel, the Middle-Eastern fast-casual restaurant specializing in falafel, has packed up its shop in Dallas' West Village and hit the road.
The restaurant has been completely dismantled and its neon sign is currently lying rather sadly in the parking lot behind the restaurant. A representative from their New York location confirmed that the Dallas restaurant closed for good.
A spokesperson from the West Village center said that the restaurant closed on November 11, which is exactly nine months from when it opened in February 2018.
"Their sales were not going well so their owners decided to close the doors," he said.
Mamoun's was born in New York's Greenwich Village where it has been serving Middle Eastern Food since in 1971. Its falafel combines chickpeas, onion, garlic, parsley, and spices. They had the usual profusion of vegetarian items found at a Middle Eastern restaurant, such as hummus, baba ganoush, tabouli, but they also had lamb shawarma, built on a skewer and shaved to order.
The chain was at six restaurants — in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, all company owned — when they opened in Dallas, the first location outside the Northeast. They've since signed deals to open restaurants in Chicago and Atlanta.
They arrived in Dallas following Halal Guys, a similar fast-casual Middle Eastern concept that serves falafel as part of a menu where the bigger emphasis is on chicken and rice. Halal Guys has opened five locations around DFW including one that just opened in Arlington.
Dallas has a peculiar relationship with falafel. When a new falafel place comes to town such as Mamoun's, or previously Amsterdam Falafelshop, a Washington, D.C.-based company that opened a location in Deep Ellum in 2016, it is met with much excitement. But then for some reason, the restaurants don't survive.
Starship Bagels founder Oren Salomon with the Best Bagel Award from 2025 NY Bagelfest. Courtesy