At least half of the International Café’s customers spoke in foreign languages on Friday.
The restaurant at 209 Hitt St., was packed with students and professors, a Columbia family eating shish kabobs, young couples eating a late lunch on the patio and about a dozen men from the Islamic Center of Central Missouri, the local mosque, who came for a mid-afternoon snack. The café’s menu matched the variety of its patrons. In the center of all the commotion were Mohamed and Elizabeth Gumati, the restaurant’s owners, who, after 15 years of running the International Café, have grown used to the early afternoon rush. “We’re really busy at lunch, but dinner is slow,” Mohamed Gumati said. “The peak hours are from 11:30 to 1:30.”
The restaurant looks like an average American eatery. Sandwiched between a Laundromat and an apartment building, the International Café has an inviting patio in front, which the owners credit for much of their success in the summer. A collection of trees lining one side of the building shade the 20-by-20-foot outside dining area, a place any over-heated student would find appealing in August.
The inside has the motif of a stereotypical post-1980 small-town restaurant. The windows are decorated with an abbreviated sticker menu, featuring items scuh as “falafel,” “hummus” and “Greek salad.” Even the door window has a pronunciation guide to the ever popular and misspoken Mediterranean staple gyros — spelled “Yee-Ros” on the front door.
Benches line a wall and tables cover the space in between. The kitchen is open so customers can watch how their food goes from the stove to their plate. With Arabic television running in background, the interior is a universally ethnic-American trademark, embodying the aspirations Mohamed Gumati had for the United States, even when he was growing up far away from Columbia.
Moving away
Mohamed Gumati was born in Libya, a North African country running along the Mediterranean Sea and has a long, unstable history with the United States. In 1969, while Mohamed Gumati was growing up, the nation underwent a massive political upheaval, as its monarch, King Muhammad Idris, was overthrown by a military coup.
“The system changed,” Mohamed Gumati said. “A dictator took over.”
The dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, installed socialism in Libya and after 30 volatile years is still in power.
The situation looked grim for Mohamed Gumati and his future as a successful entrepreneur.
“There’s no business,” he said. “In that system, you go into the army.”
In 1977, the same year the country changed its name from the Libyan Arab Republic to the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Mohamed Gumati left his home. Through an international student program, he attended Webster University in St. Louis.
When he arrived in America, Mohamed Gumati knew no English. He had no close family members or friends, just a few scattered cousins he barely knew.
“It was hard,” he said. “The first six months are very hard but after that, you adjust.” It was his lack of English proficiency that led him to meet his future business partner and spouse, Elizabeth Gumati, a Venezuelan student who also had just arrived in America. In 1982, they met in an English class at Webster. The two were an almost instant couple and were married in 1983. Although Mohamed Gumati enjoyed his jobs in the food industry, he didn’t plan on becoming a restaurant manager. It was more of an opportunity that simply appeared. “I had to do something,” he said. “It was the first job I got, and if you go from one career to another, you’ll never get anywhere.”
Starting the café
A friend’s restaurant near MU brought the Gumatis to Columbia.
“He needed a manager and I majored in business management at Webster," Mohamed Gumati said. "His business was small, smaller than this.” Mohamed Gumati threw up his arms as is if his own place was no bigger than a hot dog stand.
“(A small business) takes a lot of dedication, a lot of hours,” Elizabeth Gumati said. “It has to be your life.”
Finding their friend’s business too little for their growing aspirations, the couple decided to start their own restaurant. Their concept was a mutual blending of their two cultures.
“I was from Libya,” Mohamed Gumati said. “She was from Venezuela. Between us, we had the freedom to make anything.” Thus, the International Café was born.
The café first opened further down Hitt Street; the couple later moved to their current building. “Opening day for the second place was a big hit,” Mohamed Gumati said.
Still, the family felt intimidated by the environment in the early 1990s. A large homeless population used to live in the broken-down and abandoned buildings nearby the café. “There was nothing out here,” Mohamed Gumati said.
Tricky demographics
To make matters worse, the Gumatis, like other businesses in college towns, had to deal with an ever-changing population. Most of their customers are college students from Stephens College and MU. “The thing is, the population doesn’t change like a regular city,” Mohamed Gumati said. “The growth is different.” The eccentric and diverse menu attracted the eyes and stomachs of Columbia.
Before the International Café, the average Columbia resident would have a hard time finding moussaka, dolma or tzanziki. The menu is equally balanced between these lesser known specialties and more popular Mediterranean favorites like gyros or baklava.
Although it took time to build momentum, a loyal gathering of customers grew over the next decade, spanning in and out of the university scene and the overall community. Customers who had been to bigger cities compared the food of the International Café to businesses in Chicago and Europe.
Community support
The loyal following was put to the test last fall when misfortune struck the Gumati family. In November 2004, a fire broke out in the kitchen of the café.
No one was injured but the café was closed for two months.
For the entrepreneurs, it was a reminder of how quickly everything they had worked for could fall into jeopardy. “We were lucky it happened in the off season,” Elizabeth Gumati said. “But two months is still a long time.”
The devoted patrons of the International Café would not stand by and watch their favorite restaurant fail. “We have a lot of loyal customers,” Elizabeth Gumati said. “They were waiting for the place to re-open.”
She said that over the winter holidays, friends and Columbia residents sent checks to aid the cost of repairs and reopening. With their support, the International Café reopened in January and business has been running as usual.
Looking ahead
As for the future, Mohamed Gumati said he has big plans for the International Café. The current location is too small for his goals, he said. “Maybe in four or five years, we’ll move to a nicer street, someplace closer to downtown,” he said.
He wants to make the dinner crowd just as popular as the lunch crowd. He has checked out surrounding property and a place available on Ninth Street.
“I’d lose my patio, though,” Mohamed Gumati said. The Gumatis have enough experience to guarantee the livelihood of the International Café for another decade, if they want, they said.
“It’s not easy,” Elizabeth Gumati said.
By Jedd Rosche, Reporter.
