Salim Hanna was born on February 5, 1939 in Beirut, Lebanon.
From 1956 to 1960, he attended the Lebanon College in Choueifat,
majoring in math and science. He graduated with a teaching
certificate.
From 1961 to 1968, Hanna taught math and
science at the Johann Ludwig Schneller School.
I was a teacher in a
school for orphans. Five hundred students there. It was operated
by the Lutheran church from Germany. The money came from the
Lebanese government, the Lutheran church and the United Nations.
I was there for six years ― in the mountains, in the Beqaa
Valley. It was beautiful. I loved it.
Salim
Hanna (center), Johann Ludwig Schneller School, circa
1965
Ruth Emilie Allwardt was born on May 15, 1943
in Kirland, Ohio. She moved to St. Louis with her family in 1956.
After graduating from Valparaiso University in 1965, she served in
the Peace Corps, teaching English in the Philippines.
While in the Peace Corps, Allwardt visited
India, where she came down with food poisoning. She was told she
could go to Beirut or to Switzerland for treatment. She chose
Beirut, as she had two friends from St. Louis who were teaching at
the Johann Ludwig Schneller School. That's when Ruth Allwardt met
Salim Hanna.
Salim
Hanna at family farm
Lebanon, circa 1960
Ruth
Allwardt & Salim Hanna
Johann Ludwig Schneller School, circa 1968
After teaching orphans for six years in
Lebanon, Hanna decided to study computer science. He received a
scholarship from the University of Pittsburgh, which he attended
from March 1969 to September 1969. He then attended the Electronic
Computer Programming Institute in Pittsburgh from September 1969 to
March 1970. Ruth Allwardt followed Hanna to Pittsburgh, and they
spent the summer together.
While in Pittsburgh, Hanna got his first job in
the restaurant business. He worked part time at McDonald's from
March 1969 to May 1970 as a group leader and cashier. He then moved
to St. Louis, where he married Ruth Allwardt in September of 1970.
Ruth
Hanna, St. Louis, Jan 1971
Hanna took another computer course in St. Louis
at Washington University, in the fall of 1970. He also took another
restaurant job, again at McDonald's, where he was the assistant
manager from August 1970 to April 1971. He moved on to Burger Chef
as the night manager from April 1971 to September 1971.
With managerial experience at two fast-food
hamburger restaurants, Hanna move on to
The Fatted Calf in September of 1971, starting at the 3537
Lindell location.
I used to run The
Fatted Calf ― the best hamburger. I changed their system.
I
saw people open the door, they see the line, they turn around
and leave. So I decided to have the food ready all the time.
I started there, next to St. Louis
University, and then did the two downtown, and after that I was
kind of the supervisor. They sent me to Clayton for a little bit
and then I quit.
Hanna "quit' The Fatted Calf in July of 1972
and returned to Lebanon with his wife, Ruth.
I went back to
Lebanon because IBM sent me a letter that they needed me. IBM
wanted to send me to Saudi Arabia, and I wouldn’t go. Then I
decided to go into the restaurant business.
My dad had a friend who owned a
five-star restaurant in Lebanon. We went there and we had
dinner, me and my dad, and the owner came and said, “Mr. Hanna,
how are you?” My dad said, “I need a favor from you. My son
would love to open a restaurant in the United States and he
needs some experience. No payment. Nothing. Just give him a
chance, a week or two, in your kitchen.”
He did it. And that was the
beginning.
After spending
eight months in Lebanon, the Hannas returned to St. Louis. Hanna
worked briefly at Louis IX on Big Bend in Webster Groves, where he
featured "luncheons and dinners of succulent shish-kebob and chicken
kebob, spicy shawarma and falafel sandwiches."
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, May 18, 1973
1973
Louis IX Lunch Menu
(click image to enlarge)
In April of 1974, Salim Hanna began serving Lebanese
food from his own restaurant at 3170 South Grand. He called it Saleem's.
I spell it with two
E's so people don't pronounce it Sa-LIM's.
I chose South Grand because the
county and the western part of the city were too costly for my
small investment and the downtown is mostly luncheon business.
Besides, my neighborhood is South St. Louis.
Saleem's, 3170 South Grand
Saleem's was a small, storefront establishment.
When it opened, there were six tables and a 6-by-15-foot kitchen.
There was no bar.
We could afford
either a liquor license or an air conditioner, and for our first
summer, we thought an air conditioner was better.
A few green plants hung in the window and there
were Middle Eastern decorations on the walls. The napkins were cloth
and the tablecloths were sparkling white. There were ten people
there the first night, and all came back.
Hanna did most of the
cooking, with the help of a neighborhood woman, and Ruth helped wait on tables.
First
Saleem's Menu, April 1974
(click image to enlarge)
Not long after Saleem's opened, St. Louis
Post-Dispatch restaurant critic Joe Pollack and his wife came in
for dinner. Hanna did not know Pollack at the time.
This couple came and
had dinner. My wife had a flower hanging up at the entrance, and
it died. So she took it down and threw it away, but she didn’t
take down the hanging wires. Pollack's wife smiled and looked at
me and said, "What do you do with those wires?" I said, "When
people don't like our food, we hang them." She laughed. Joe
Pollack just smiled.
Pollack liked Saleem's; he and his wife were
not hanged.
Dinner at Saleem's is
a delightful experience, with two persons able to stuff
themselves for considerably less than $10.
The portions don't seem to be of
mammoth size, yet the taste and richness combine to leave a
pleasantly full feeling with just enough room for a rich dessert
and Turkish coffee.
Dinner at
Saleem's was a bright, tasty, warm, wonderful and inexpensive
experience, and the wish is that the restaurant flourish like
the cedars of Hanna's native land.
St Louis Post-Dispatch, Jun 5,
1974
1974 Saleem's Menu
(click image to enlarge)
In 1976, Hanna expanded his restaurant into the
adjacent storefront space. He
added a full-sized dining room, seating 80, and a night club. The night club had a lavish Middle Eastern design,
with arabesque arches, brightly colored wall hangings, rich looking
carpets and a tent-shaped ceiling. The club featured live music and
belly dancers on weekends.
Saleem's New Dining Room
In his December 9, 1977 Post-Dispatch
review, critic Dice Richmond painted a vivid picture of Hanna's
belly dancers.
The night I was there
I was lucky enough to see the dancing styles of three different
performers, Kismet, Noel and Simone. I've seen this type of
dancing on several occasions and seldom enjoyed it. I think
there were two things that changed my way of viewing at Saleem's.
One was that the music was performed so well; the other was that
women danced marvelously.
Kismet's style was precise yet
sensuous, food for the imagination as she danced behind her
veils that caught the light like a mysterious figure behind a
stained glass window.
Noel has one of those precious young
faces that expresses the delight she feels over her own
performance. The mistakes she makes adds to the charm of the
dance, almost like a pompon girl leading a cheer or a bashful
child teasing a young lover, seeing the effect she is having and
not yet knowing why.
Simone, blonde and lovely, was
different again. She is fully aware of the impact she creates,
of the open stares and of the men commenting to one another and
then snickering. Her dance stayed within the limits of romantic
thinking until she induced a young man to come to the stage to
teach him an art for which he and almost any other male is
physically unsuited. The audience, however, always enjoys this
kind of performance. Frankly, I don't mind it either, as long as
it's not me up there making a fool of myself.
Saleem's Belly Dancers
In 1938, James Pelican opened a restaurant with
his surname at 2256 South Grand.
Pelican's, known for its turtle
soup, developed a devoted following. James Pelican sold his
restaurant in 1956 and it was sold again in 1975. The third owner
closed Pelican's in 1978.
Pelican's, 2256 South Grand
In the late 1970s, South Grand Boulevard was
undergoing a rebirth. Salim Hanna was an integral part of that
rebirth.
I was the president
of the South Grand Merchants Association. A Chinese restaurant
had left and also a very good German one. They were all gone. We
started bringing in new people ― an Italian one, a Chinese one ―
and South Grand was busy.
We were at a turning point. Either we
go forward as a unique area of restaurants, shops and
entertainment, or else we go under for good.
I bought Pelican’s not because I
wanted to buy Pelican’s. The reason I had to buy it was because
if I didn’t, it would be fast food ― McDonald’s or something.
South Grand would be kaput. I had to buy Pelican’s. I had no
choice. Either I will do it or nobody will do it.
The bank gave Hanna a
$250,000 loan at a favorable rate to purchase and renovate the
Pelican's building. For his efforts, Hanna and his wife Ruth
received a proclamation from the mayor of St. Louis at a ribbon
cutting ceremony for the restaurant's reopening on December 13,
1979.
Salim
Hanna supervising Pelican's renovation, 1979
Proclamation, Dec 13, 1979
(click image to enlarge)
Hanna created an atmosphere of warmth and
comfort. Pelican's new interior displayed a spectrum of brown tones
in textured wallpaper, natural woodwork and carpeting. Leather
booths, leaded glass windows and crystal light fixtures were
replaced, and a full length wall mural was removed. The familiar
etched Pelican figures on mirrored walls were retained.
We wanted to make it
as much like the old days as possible. We found old drawings and
pictures and re-did the interior. We hope to make it as fine a
seafood restaurant as it was many years ago.
Hanna retained much of Pelican's menu,
including the turtle soup.
The turtle soup
recipe has a story by itself. We didn’t know how to make it. But
somebody told me that the chef at a restaurant at Clayton and
Forty did. So my wife and I went there for dinner. She’s a
journalist. She wants to talk to him. She asks for Big Daddy and
told him how fantastic the food is. She asked him if he had been
there for a long time. He said, yes, since Pelican's. And that’s
it. We doubled his salary. He stayed with me until I sold the
place.
On January 13, 1981, Hanna featured a "Best of
the Forties" menu, with prices from a 1945 Pelican's menu he
had found.
We had a line from
the restaurant, two blocks. I ordered 600 lobsters from Boston.
They said 6,000 people came for the day to all the restaurants
around me, besides Pelican’s. Four dollars – our regular menu
was eighteen dollars. People came and grabbed those 600 pretty
fast.
But people stayed because we had like a
party. There was singing and music. We had a lady dressed up
like the forties going around and selling cigarettes. All the
waitresses wore 1940s. And me too.
Pelican's Best of the
Forties Menu, Jan 13, 1981
(click image to enlarge)
Ruth Hanna was very much involved with her
husband's restaurants; she did much of the advertising. But about a
year after the Pelican's "Best of the Forties" night, Salim and Ruth
Hanna were divorced.
We divorced and she
married Bob [Robert Ferre]. She was so busy and I was so busy,
but we never lost the love for each other. After she married,
she'd come with Bob to the restaurant and I never charged them.
Bob would sit and I’d come sit next to her, and she would get my
hand. She told Bob, "I like you, but I still love Salim."
Ruth Hanna died in January of 2007.
Ruth Emilie Hanna, 1943 -
2007
Hanna found himself spending more and more time
at Pelican's, at the expense of his original Lebanese restaurant.
Customers started
complaining to me about Saleem's that the service was getting
very bad. I’m more at the Pelican ― I have 30 people working
there. I told them to sell everything out ― all the food, beer
and whatever ― and the same night, I closed it.
Hanna closed his
restaurant at 3170 South Grand in April of 1981, and integrated many
of Saleem's Lebanese dishes into the Pelican's menu.
1981 Pelican's Menu
(click image to enlarge)
When Hanna took out his loan to buy and rehab
the Pelican's building, the interest rate was 11 percent. By 1982,
the rate had climbed to 22 percent.
The president of the
bank, and a couple of guys with him, used to come every night
and spend the evening after work at the bar. After a year or so,
they started asking me if I would sell it to them. I said no. I
kept saying no. And then the 22 percent hit me. I said, I hate
to do this, but if you guys are insisting, I’ll sell it to you.
The loan was for $250,000, becoming
$300,000. I said, I’ll turn everything over to you and give me
$15,000. That’s all I want. They thought, what the heck, a great
deal. They thought I’m stupid. So I went to the bank and that’s
what we did.
Hanna took his $15,000 and began hunting for a
new location for his restaurant. He looked in the Central West End
and the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood, but didn't find anything
he wanted.
Hanna was friends with Bob Suberi. Suberi and
his wife Barb owned
Bobby's Creole on Delmar in the University City Loop.
Bob use to live right
next to Pelican's. He asked me to come and try his restaurant,
and I loved that seafood that he makes. It was fantastic.
I was in his place one night and he
said, "Salim, I want to show you something." He took me outside
and said, "See that corner? It’s empty. It’s waiting for you."
So that's it. I went there and they
said $350 a month, heat included.
Hanna
reopened Saleem's at 6501 Delmar in December of 1982.
Saleem's,
6501 Delmar
Salim
Hanna, 1982
Saleem's new dining room featured bunting
draped across the ceiling to resemble a tent. Wall hangings
depicting exotic Arabian nights were arranged around the room. The
lights were low and Lebanese, Egyptian and other Middle Eastern
music played in the background.
In U. City, can you
believe we used to have 200 people a night? On the weekends, not
the weekdays. I had the best managers, and all of my waitresses
were from Washington University. They were all educated, smart
and beautiful. My chef came with me from Pelican's. Not Big
Daddy. But Big Daddy recommended him to me. He said this kid is
so smart, you wouldn't believe it. And he was. He stayed with me
18 years.
I had
a manager; she knew everybody's name. When they’d be walking
into the restaurant, she'd tell me their name ― that's Bob and
Mary, or something. And I would come and say, "Hey, Bob, how are
you doing, buddy?" They loved that. But I meant it ― not because
I wanted his money. They're a friend.
Saleem's Waitress
Hanna served the same Lebanese food at his
University City restaurant as he had on South Grand.
Many people expect
Middle Eastern food to be hot or spicy, but it's not. It's
closer to Mediterranean cooking. We use a lot of tahini sauce
and fresh garlic and no fat or preservatives. The food is
healthy, and it tastes fantastic.
I serve only what I like. If I don't
like it, then it isn't on the menu. I enjoy explaining what's in
these dishes. The day I hate explaining things to the customers
is the day I quit.
Pelican's turtle soup was initially offered in
University City, but it wasn't as popular as on South Grand.
We started with it,
but when you make that much in a barrel, we couldn't sell it
all. At Pelican's, it goes in a couple days. There, we had to
make room for it in the refrigerator. Take it in and out. So we
stopped it after that.
Saleem's,
6501 Delmar, 1982
Two of Hanna's favorites were
tabbouleh, made
with chopped parsley and cracked wheat, and
kibbee, made with ground
beef and cracked wheat.
Kibbee can be enjoyed
hot or cold, as a meal or a snack. It is perfect with tabbouleh
or served cold with yogurt.
Tabbouleh
Kibbee
In September of 1986, Hanna instituted an
annual garlic festival at his restaurant.
We had always used
garlic in our cooking, as it's such an important ingredient.
After I attended a garlic festival in Toronto in 1986, we
experimented with some additional menu items and added "Where
Garlic is King" to our logo.
The annual festival included a garlic-eating
contest. That first year, a Washington University coed inhaled 15
roasted heads of garlic in seven minutes. The contest lasted ten
minutes, but after seven, none of the competitors were interested in
continuing.
Hanna reported that the triumphant young lady
did not go unpunished for her dominance.
On the day after the
contest, she told me she sat by herself in the classroom at
school. She smelled so bad she went into the corner so she would
not bother anyone, and she was alone.
But she said that she felt fantastic,
she had energy. And then she became addicted to the garlic, and
she came back to the restaurant once a week after that, to eat a
couple of heads of roasted garlic.
Saleem's Garlic Eating Contest, 1987
In the spring of 1991,
Hanna opened a second Saleem's at 20 Clarkson Center in
Chesterfield, with a similar menu. However, the Lebanese restaurant
was short lived. By January of 1992, Hanna had converted the space
into Salina's Mexican Restaurant.
There’s no Mexican
restaurant in the area, so I opened it as a Mexican restaurant
and made a lot of money. But I couldn’t run two restaurants, so
I sold it for $50,000. I bought it for nothing and I didn’t owe
anything on it. That was just for money.
1986
Saleem's Menu
(click image to enlarge)
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, May 8, 1991
In 1999, Hanna moved to Los Angeles for four
years to be with his sister. He turned management of Saleem's over
to his assistant manager, Won Park. Park, whose family hailed from
Korea, had been living in Chicago when his brother came to St. Louis
to attend Washington University. Park followed and found work at Saleem's.
In 2002, Hanna sold Saleem's to Park, who continued serving Hanna's traditional
Lebanese dishes in the University City Loop until he closed the
restaurant
in 2009.
Saleem's, 6501 Delmar
Washington University Student Life, Aug 28, 2006
When Hanna returned to St. Louis in 2003, he was
63-years-old. He wasn't ready to retire. In the fall
of 2003, he opened Simon's Cafe in the Forum Center at Olive and
Woods Mill Road in Chesterfield. Named after his son, it was an
early indoctrination for the 13-year-old into the restaurant
business.
Simon's
Cafe, 79 Forum Center
The strip-mall space had long been occupied by
a Dairy Queen, but all vestiges of Mr. Misty and the Dilly Bar were
gone. The dining room, with its burled walnut tables and Middle
Eastern mural on the back wall, now served Salim Hanna's Lebanese
menu, and garlic was still king.
Hanna closed Simon's Cafe in October of 2007.
Early in 2008, he reopened his Lebanese restaurant as Saleem's West
at 14560 Manchester Road in Winchester Plaza. The space had
previously housed Portofino’s and Giovanni’s Little Place.
Saleem's West, 14560 Manchester Road
Saleem's West featured persimmon walls, red
drapes and Middle Eastern artwork. It was a large space, with
two dining rooms and a back room for private parties.
Simon Hanna, now 17, served as cook and pastry
chef. He was often seen in the dining room in a red tunic. His
frequent pastime was flaming one of the restaurant's signature
desserts, strawberries flambé.
I’ve been learning
from my dad since I was little. He taught me the art of
hospitality, and that consistency is everything in the
restaurant business. He also taught me the philosophy of
Lebanese cooking ― to keep everything fresh.
Simon
Hanna (right) in Saleem's West Dining Room, 2012
Saleem's West featured the same Lebanese food
Hanna had served his entire career.
You have to have
garlic, olive oil and lemon when you cook or else you’re not
Lebanese. We’re proud of everything we serve. And we take pride
in serving our customers who, generation after generation, have
made us a dining destination.
Saleem's West Menu
(click image to enlarge)
Garlic was still king at Saleem's West. Hanna
even served garlicky mixed drinks. The "Bloody Miracle" was made
with vodka, tomato mix and fresh-squeezed garlic. The "Martini with
Pickle" featured pickled garlic submerged in gin.
If I have a cold or I
feel one coming on I eat a couple of raw cloves blended with
lemon and olive oil in a blender. We give it to everybody who
works here in the winter, too. If they come in sniffling, and
they eat the garlic, they feel the difference immediately. You
can breathe easier.
Garlic kills on contact, you know.
The germs, I mean, it kills the germs on contact, not the
people.
A head
of roasted garlic served at Saleem's West
After almost 40 years in the restaurant
business, Salim Hanna decided to retire. Simon Hanna also retired
from the restaurant business.
On December 14, 2013, Saleem's West stopped
serving Lebanese food and closed its doors. Garlic was no longer king.
