I’ve seen Karkit Arak but never a May Zaher one. It’s pretty cool that they still use them these days.

Even better, there are some authentic Lebanese restaurants who organize a Karke night every now and then.

The municipality of Beirut has initiated a project back in April 2010 to renovate that old house and turn it into a museum and an urban cultural center. [Link]

The house was a strategic spot for snipers during the 1975-1990 civil war.

I am all for restoring old buildings but looking at the state of that building and the amount of time and money it’s gonna take to fix it, I’d rather they destroy it and rebuild it.

I LOVE old photos so when I read about the The Fouad Debbas Collection on +961 I quickly clicked the link to check out all the pictures. There are 5,773 old photos of Lebanon in that collection! It’s crazy, I don’t know how I am going to be able to see them all, I love it! You can also check out the collection by clicking [Here]

“Liban, un carrefour” is the name of the article that the Belgian Newspaper Missi chose for Lebanon. The article dates back from 1966 and was retrieved by Maroun Salhani from NowLebanon.

Nahr el Kalb is shown in the picture above and there are four more pictures that you can see [Here].

To read the whole article, check [Here].

PS: Carrefour is the french word for meeting point or crossroad.

Was this really the best way to preserve that old house in Sursoq street in Achrafieh ? by constructing on top of it and blocking its front view?

I would have preferred that they demolish it rather than screwing it up like that.

I just heard about this from BoingBoing. Telfezion is a website that emulates Lebanese television in the 90s. The website is created by Nadim Kobeissi and this is what he told BoingBoing about the project:

I grew up in Lebanon and didn’t move to Montreal until I was 18. I had very strong memories of how Television in Lebanon was during my childhood in the 90′s, and made telfezion.com as a project to emulate those memories as accurately as possible.

I spent days looking through YouTube/obscure Arabic websites for the footage, which is highly nostalgic Lebanese ads, political videos, cartoons that were popular in Lebanon during my childhood, etc. I’ve sent it to Lebanese friends – many got tears of nostalgia.

Some facts:
* “Telfezion” is how television is referred to in Lebanese Arabic
* Contains almost an hour of footage, adding more every day.
* It uses sessions and a sorting algorithm to queue the footage randomly but with proper spacing

I plan to find and add more news/political footage, as Lebanon was only beginning to emerge from a highly political 25-year civil war in the 90′s.

My motive for making this site is just that it’s so much fun. All my Lebanese friends recognize how valuable it is – it’s so weird for them see the Internet mirror intimate and highly relevant childhood memories and I love working on that.

Sadly Nadim forgot to emulate Lebanese internet in 2011 and so I’m currently having trouble watching it. Takes me like a minute to watch 5 seconds of footage. [Link]

Beirut NTSC posted cool pictures back from the Lebanese war (Tezkar wou ma ten3ad). Check out [Part1], [Part2], [Part3] and [Part4]

Footage shot in the 1950s showing daily village life, the loocal market and country views. Taken from the Huntley Film Archives. [YouTube]

Taken from the Huntley Film Archives [YouTube]

Found this picture on a friends blog and I thought it was pretty cool. [Link]

As you might have heard, the venerable 2ahwet el 2zez will be definitely closing its doors in a few days.
We want to give it the proper final goodbye it deserves.

Save Beirut Heritage invites you to share one last cup of coffee with the locals at Café Gemmayzé on January 5, 2011 at 7:30 pm.
Come tell us your stories…

This will be Followed at 8:30 by a farewell concert with great live performances by:

ZEID AND THE WINGS, ADONIS AND TINA YAMOUT
Prince Giorgio will also be playing music from Lebanon’s golden days.

Tickets are on sale at Café Gemmayzé for 20 000 L.L.and at the tequila pub gemmayze including one beer.
For more info or reservations , call 71 319 167

For those of you who don’t know, the building was purchased by Bank Audi and shall be demolished. Ahwet el e2zez has opened in a new location in Antelias.

Najib was nice enough to scan me some of his birthday pictures at Juicy Burger. He promised he will send me a bunch and once I get them will post them up here.

Just found this AMAZING article on Juicy Burger dating back to 1984. The article talks about how Juicy Burger started, the success they had and how they were growing and expanding even though there was a war taking place. I tried to find a logo or visual of Juicy Burger to attach to this post but couldn’t find anything so if anyone finds one please tell me.

But last year, amidst all the terrorist attacks, civil strife, assassinations and shellings, a new American-style fast-food burger and chicken chain called Juicy Burger not only managed to open three downtown restaurants but posted annualized average unit volumes in excess of $2 million.

And even though the situation in Beirut has deteriorated close to anarchy in recent weeks, Juicy Burger officials insist they will open at least one additional unit here this year, plus others in Egypt and Cyprus.

Juicy Burger units are staffed by local students and housewives. Restaurants have six service counter cashiers, two ice cream dippers and cashiers, and three cooks per shift. Two other workers handle food preparation: fresh chickens are purchased whole and cleaned and cut on the premises; roast beef is cooked at the unit level every day, and coleslaw and tartar sauce are made from scratch. Labor costs are about 13% of total sales.

Employees are required to have a working knowledge of English, Arabic and French, the three dominant languages in Beirut. A training unit is situated on Tripoli Highway which has facilities for classroom work and practical experience training.

You can read the full two page article [Here]

Huntley Archives just uploaded a video of Lebanon dating back to 1968 and really does look like a scene out of Mad Men. This video doesn’t have any sound but its street shots taken I think in Beirut and the downtown area. I love how nearly all the men are wearing suits! They will be uploading more videos of Lebanon and once they do will post them here. [YouTube]