A Serving of Pita with a Little Hookah on the Side

When Wooden Bakery opened its doors three years ago on Mill Street in Vienna, it was nothing more than a one-room, over-the-counter Lebanese bakery with exceptional pita.

Today, the bakery has expanded from its one room to include a market, a dining area and a hookah lounge. But as Wooden Bakery expended, the family-owned business never lost the intimate appeal and customer service that sparked its growth.

"We always like to take care of our customers, and that's our main concern," Rami El-Hasrouni, member of the barkey's ownership family, said. "We take care of them as family. We work here as a family and customer service is our main concern."

The El-Hasrouni family arrived in the Vienna area a little more than three years ago, and opened Wooden Bakery not long after.

Pita is still the specialty on the menu. The family bakes new batches of the bread four days a week, and uses it in a variety of ways. 

Wooden Bakery stuffs its pita bread with different ingredients to make sandwiches for customers, but it also sells just pita bread to customers who are breezing through. Recently, the restaurant began selling its pita bread to other vendors, like Shoppers Food Warehouse.

"The whole business is based on the pita," El-Hasrouni said. "It's the best quality around the area right now."

The bakery also sells popular Lebanese desserts over the counter to customers.

The market sells many of the necessary ingredients to popular Lebanese dishes that can be difficult to find in America, setting it apart from a typical grocery store.

Five months ago, Wooden Bakery expanded further by adding a dining room that doubles as a hookah lounge, allowing more customers to come into the bakery and sit for a meal.

The bakery is open from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, and leaves the lounge open until 4:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.

While not the main intent, El-Hasrouni feels Wooden Bakery is helping to spread Lebanese culture to Vienna residents. He said he has seen major growth in the bakery's client base from the time it opened to this summer as more and more people discover the bakery and try the Lebanese favorites on the menu.

"We have a lot of people coming back every day," El-Hasrouni said. "Most of our customers are Arabic, but we're trying to get more Americans (to give us a try). We're trying to play a bigger role in the community."