Quick answer. Yaser Baker is the founder of Al-Basha, a Palestinian restaurant in Paterson, New Jersey. He grew up in Ramallah, learned to cook across two different kitchens as a teenager, spent eleven years working on a Hudson River ferry after moving to the United States, and opened Al-Basha in 1998. His sons Ammar and Mohammad now run the business alongside him and opened a second location on Crooks Avenue.
Most people who eat at Al-Basha know the food before they know the name behind it. The hummus, grilled meats, and trays of musakhan A table of six enjoys popular dishes like hummus, grilled meats, and trays of musakhan. to a table of six are all popular dishes. What’s less visible is how much of that menu traces back to one person’s actual life in Ramallah, not a concept built around Palestinian food as a theme.
Growing Up in Ramallah
Yaser Baker was born and raised in Ramallah, a city in the central West Bank known for its markets, its stone architecture, and a food culture built around sharing. He didn’t grow up in a restaurant family. He grew up wanting to be in one.
That interest turned into work early. As a teenager, Yaser took a summer job at an ice cream shop in Ramallah, serving locals and tourists during the hottest months of the year. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it put him inside a kitchen, on a schedule, learning what it meant to prepare food for strangers on a daily basis.
Two Kitchens, Two Seasons
What separates Yaser’s early training from a typical first job is that it didn’t stop when summer ended. When the weather turned and Ramallah’s ice cream season slowed down, he moved to Jericho for the winter and worked in a restaurant there instead.
Jericho and Ramallah are only about an hour apart, but the shift from a seasonal ice cream counter to a full restaurant kitchen meant learning an entirely different set of skills. Instead of scooping and serving, Yaser was now cooking. Sauces, proteins, and the timing that a busy dinner service demands. That back and forth between two cities and two kitchens, repeated year after year, is where his actual cooking foundation was built, well before Al-Basha existed as an idea.
Eleven Years on the Hudson
Yaser eventually left Palestine for the United States, looking for more room to grow than either of his two Ramallah jobs could offer. He didn’t walk straight into restaurant ownership. He took a job on a ferryboat operating on the Hudson River and stayed there for eleven years.
That job put him in an unexpected position. A ferry kitchen serving American and Italian food gave him a second culinary education, this time in cuisines he hadn’t grown up cooking. He spent over a decade learning technique, ingredients, and kitchen management in a completely different food culture, all while the dishes he’d learned in Ramallah and Jericho stayed with him.
Eleven years is a long apprenticeship by any standard. By the time it ended, Yaser wasn’t just someone who knew Palestinian food. He understood American kitchens, American customers, and what it actually takes to run service at scale, all skills that don’t show up on a menu but shape how a restaurant is built.
Opening Al-Basha in 1998
In 1998, Yaser opened Al-Basha. The name and the food were rooted in what he’d learned growing up, but the restaurant itself was built with everything he’d absorbed on the ferry boat added on top. It opened in a Paterson, New Jersey, neighborhood and started building a following the way most independent restaurants do, one regular customer at a time.
What set the food apart wasn’t novelty. It was that the person cooking it had actually spent his childhood in the kitchens of Ramallah and Jericho, not researching Palestinian cuisine from the outside. The hummus, the grilled meats, and the dishes that would later anchor the menu weren’t reconstructed from memory or recipe books. They were dishes Yaser already knew how to make correctly.
Ammar and Mohammad Take the Reins
Yaser’s two sons, Ammar and Mohammad, grew up around the restaurant and eventually joined the business themselves. They brought a different set of instincts than their father, shaped by growing up in New Jersey rather than Ramallah, but the same underlying commitment to the food staying authentic.
Together, the three of them expanded the business, opening a second Al-Basha location on Crooks Avenue in Paterson. The dine-in location gave the family room to serve guests in a full restaurant setting, while the original Main Street location continued handling takeout and delivery. Two locations running under one family name, built on the same foundation Yaser laid in 1998.
What Actually Ends Up on the Table
Al-Basha’s menu is built around dishes that come directly from Palestinian home cooking, not a general Middle Eastern sampler. Musakhan, widely considered Palestine’s national dish, is one of the clearest examples.
It’s roasted chicken layered over taboon bread with sumac, onions, and olive oil, and it shows up on the menu because it’s a dish Yaser grew up eating, not because it tested well as a menu item.
The full range runs from hummus and falafel to grilled kabobs and lamb chops, the kind of dishes most people associate with the region generally. What separates them here is preparation rooted in an actual Palestinian kitchen. Anyone curious about the specifics can look through the full menu or read a breakdown of the famous dishes tied to Palestinian food, including a closer look at musakhan itself.
Why Ramallah Still Shapes the Menu
Ramallah isn’t just where Yaser is from. It’s a specific regional food culture, distinct from what a diner might get at a restaurant built around Lebanese or Syrian cooking instead. The spice mixes, the bread, and the way meat and vegetables are prepared—all of it reflects what Yaser grew up eating in that particular city.
For anyone wanting more context on that connection, The Food of Ramallah covers what makes the city’s cuisine distinct and how closely it lines up with what actually gets served at Al-Basha today.
Palestinian Food Inside a Broader Middle Eastern Category
Palestinian food often gets grouped under the broader label of Middle Eastern cuisine, which isn’t wrong, but it can flatten some real differences between regional cooking styles. Palestinian cuisine has its own identity within that larger category, shaped by specific ingredients, techniques, and dishes tied to the region.
Readers who want the broader picture can look at seven Middle Eastern foods worth trying or the breakdown of how Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food actually differ, both useful for understanding where Palestinian cooking sits inside that wider landscape.
Finding Al-Basha in New Jersey
Al-Basha now operates two Paterson locations under the same family, with catering available for anyone looking to bring the same food to a larger event. This guide to Palestinian cuisine in New Jersey provides a broader look at where to find strong Palestinian cooking, including the landscape that Al-Basha occupies.
What the Restaurant Looks Like Today
The Crooks Avenue location opened in 2021, giving the family a larger space built specifically around hosting guests for bigger moments, not just a quick meal. The Baker family has described the restaurant as an extension of their own home, built on the idea that decades of sharing food across cultures and communities matter more than any single dish on the menu.
That framing lines up with how the business actually grew. Not through a marketing plan, but through one family cooking food they knew well enough to serve without shortcuts.
Two locations now split the work. Main Street handles takeout and delivery for anyone who wants Al-Basha without sitting down for a full meal. Crooks Avenue handles dine-in, reservations, and the kind of larger gatherings a family-style Palestinian meal is built for. Both trace back to the same recipes Yaser carried with him from Ramallah.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Yaser Baker?
Yaser Baker is the founder of Al-Basha, a Palestinian restaurant in Paterson, New Jersey. He grew up in Ramallah, trained in kitchens there and in Jericho, then spent eleven years working on a Hudson River ferry before opening Al-Basha in 1998.
What kind of food does Al-Basha serve?
Al-Basha serves authentic Palestinian food, including musakhan, hummus, falafel, grilled kabobs, and lamb chops, prepared using techniques rooted in Ramallah home cooking.
Is Al-Basha a family-owned restaurant?
Yes. Yaser Baker founded the restaurant, and his sons Ammar and Mohammad now run the business alongside him, including a second location they opened on Crooks Avenue in Paterson.
Where is Al-Basha located?
Al-Basha operates two locations in Paterson, New Jersey. One handles takeout and delivery on Main Street, and the other is a full dine-in restaurant on Crooks Avenue.
Does Al-Basha offer catering?
Yes. Al-Basha offers catering for events, bringing the same Palestinian dishes served in the restaurant to larger gatherings.
Visit Al-Basha for dine-in, order online for takeout and delivery, or reach out about catering for your next event.
