Z&Z traces its roots back to Palestine, but also through Rockville, Maryland, where the Dubbaneh family ran a fried chicken joint called the Chicken Basket. Before Danny and his siblings ever dreamed of being spice purveyors, they grew up working in their parents’ restaurant.
Issa stuck to American food at the Chicken Basket, assuming the Palestinian dishes he grew up eating wouldn’t sell in 1980s Maryland. “We never had customers come in and ask about Middle Eastern food,” he says. A short-lived addition of hummus and pita to the menu in the ’90s proved him right. The dishes weren’t selling, so he stopped trying.At home, the Dubbanehs ate traditional Arabic cooking, the type of dishes “that take 12 hours to make and five minutes to eat,” Danny says.
“Like most immigrants and most parents who grew up in restaurants, everything they tried to do was tell us to stay away from food,” Danny says. The children complied at first, graduating from college and getting jobs in accounting or research. Led by Danny and Johnny, they soon felt themselves pulled back to food.
Z&Z sells its label of za’atar, sumac, and Dead Sea salt at farmers’ markets, grocery stores, and onlineZa’atar is both the name of a spice mix and of a plant. The mix Z&Z sells contains the dried za’atar plant along with lemony sumac and sesame seeds, a savory-herbal-tart flavor combination. The Dubbanehs wanted to source their za’atar from Palestine, so they found farmers in Jenin, a city famed for the plant.