Shahezad Contractor has one of the fastest growing burger spots in Philly. He’s opening locations of Cousin’s Burger shops like he’s flipping flapjacks. Shah and I met at last year’s Philly Halal Food Festival, where we were both vendors. Our mutual friend Tabish Hoda is one of the festival organizers and the owner of Philly Halal Spots on Instagram.
Cousin’s has locations at 18th and Poplar, the Exton Mall and South Street. Next, Contractor plans to open spots in Collegeville (where he lives), Phoenixville and Cinnaminson, NJ. His menu is simple, quality fast food that’s fulfilling a need in the market. Practicing Muslims eat halal, which means consuming only meats that are slaughtered according to Islamic law. So, even though as a young man I worked at Burger King, I never ate a Whopper.
Being Muslim, Contractor grew up going to Pakistani and Indian halal butcher shops where, he says, “They have no concepts of cuts of meat.” Beef was beef, tough and lean. When he discovered Prime Halal at 23rd and Lombard 14 years ago, “It was a revelation,” he says. “I started inviting people over, like: Do you want to see what steak is like?” Prime isn’t just halal, it’s zabihah halal, slaughtered in the most humane way possible.
Shah got into cooking, mostly steaks, kabobs and Southern barbecue. He liked “tweaking something until it’s just right,” while working his day job in marketing and technology program management for clients like Marmot, Yankee Candle and Sharpie. Then, last year, Tabish convinced Shahezad to take part in the first Philly Halal Food Festival.
Contractor bought enough Prime meat for 500 people. “I thought if it doesn’t sell, the next day, I’ll do a cookout at the mosque and give it away.” He didn’t need to worry. People waited in line for an hour for one of his burgers. He sold out by 6 o’clock.
There were hiccups at the festival. “One of my guys got oil in his eye, and some of my friends jumped in to help,” he says, “My mom was in the corner making balls of meat.” His young daughter ran the cash register — and may have given away more money than they made. It was stressful, but it also lit a fire underneath him.
Shah talked to a lot of restaurant owners and entrepreneurs, and documented his journey on Instagram. He found a spot in Fairmount that was coming available. He ran into the doubters.
“Each and every step of the way people have been telling me: You can’t do it. They said there’s no parking here; it’s not on the main street,” Shahezad says.
But there was that need, and he was smart about social media. When Cousin’s opened, Tabish’s post on Philly Halal Spots got over 500,000 views. Cousin’s now has its own social media team, a 90s-theme location in the mostly vacant Exton Square Mall and a 10-week-old spot on South Street. He does a lot of business through DoorDash and Uber Eats.
Shah is in the process of hiring an accountant and an attorney to oversee more expansion. The other day, someone called from California wanting to open a Cousin’s there. “That’s the goal: Franchise,” he says.
I told him he was going to be bigger than Shake Shack. He said maybe not, but he plans to keep competing with himself to see how far he can go.
“In Islam, there’s the concept of risq,” he says, “Whatever money I’m going to make is already written, so I don’t have to worry about you; you don’t have to worry about me. Just do the best that you can.”
