Couple’s market brings Egyptian culture, food to Southwest 13th Street

Sixteen years ago, Fawzy Ebrahim moved his family more than 6,500 miles around the globe, so he could follow his ambition to become an education researcher.

Two doctorates, a tumor and two brain surgeries later, he’s now following his heart. Ebrahim, his wife Zaineb and three children have opened an international market that brings the food, culture and farming of Egypt to Southwest 13th Street.

After Ebrahim received a scholarship to study abroad, he moved from Egypt, his home country, to the U.S. in 2000 with Zaineb. He pursued two doctorate degrees in special education and statistics from the University of Georgia.

He was researching children with learning disabilities, and by 2005 he was a professor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

But almost a year after landing that job, Ebrahim was diagnosed with a tumor in his brain. It was benign, but he still had to travel to UF Health Shands in Gainesville about once a month in 2006 to prepare for surgery, he said.

After driving down 13th Street toward the hospital every month, he noticed the store that would one day become his. It used to be a furniture store, but was eventually closed.

After a second brain surgery in 2009, Ebrahim began to consider a change.

“I said ‘it’s time for me to think about moving to Gainesville,’” he said.

By 2010, he had moved his family to Newberry and began to farm. He drew on his experience helping at his family’s farm and store in the small village he grew up in.

“It’s in my blood,” he said. “I just want to be able to live, make a decent income, and at the same time try to offer something healthy.”

The Ebrahims opened ZeeZenia International Market, at 2325 SW 13th St., in February. They sell Middle Eastern, Turkish, Egyptian, Persian, Indian and Pakistani groceries. The Ebrahims’ farm, located in Newberry and also called ZeeZenia, provides the store with organic vegetables and meat.

Fawzy Ebrahim, 44, said he wanted to open the store to sell his products closer to UF’s campus. Among his vegetables are fresh okra, cucumbers, mint, eggplants, peppers, zucchini and molokhia, a middle eastern vegetable used in soup.

Fawzy Ebrahim, Zaineb Ebrahim and their three children raise their own free-range chickens, cows and lambs. The meat selection is the store’s most popular product because it comes directly from the family’s farm, Fawzy Ebrahim said.

All of the family’s meat is halel, meaning the animals are blessed before they’re killed, he said.

“Meat is common; meat is meat,” he said. “We’re not limited to the Muslim community.”

When trying to find a name for the farm, he looked to his wife.

“Her friends at school called her ZeeZenia when she was a little girl,” he said.

ZeeZenia is also the name of an affluent neighborhood in Alexandria, Egypt, similar to California’s Beverly Hills, he said. The store’s visitors usually don’t know what the name means.

“I get that question all the time,” said Zaineb Ebrahim, who’s been married to Fawzy for 18 years. “Everytime I repeat ZeeZenia, I remember Egypt.”

She’s at the store every day, from opening until closing. She enjoys introducing people to new foods and recipes, she said.

“I think the whole world agrees on food,” the 36-year-old said. “We all eat in the end and we all like to try new things.”

By the end of June, Gainesville residents will be able to order meals at the store. The couple is planning to open a kitchen in the back of the store to sell healthy and authentic Egyptian food, Fawzy Ebrahim said.

The kitchen’s menu is planned to include items like grilled chicken, Egyptian rice and salad, hummus, pita bread, mixed vegetables, soup and stew, he said.

Many of the store’s current customers are UF students. Others are from Middle Eastern countries and can’t find Ebrahim’s products without paying high prices online, he said.

“Gainesville is a very diverse town,” Fawzy Ebrahim said. “We don’t have a store that carries a wide selection of groceries to serve these populations.”

But the store’s heart is in the family that runs it.

“Exactly two years ago it was just a very simple idea,” he said. “And without my family, I would never be here.”