A Refugee's Sweet Dream
Aeman Alkadour feels at home in the kitchen. “My life with the sweets,” he says, interlocking his hands to show how they are connected.
When he’s making baklava, cookies and other treats for his business, Alkadour Sweets, the time just flies by.
Sometimes, he loses track of it. “My wife, she calls me, ‘You like to sleep at the kitchen?’ I’m not looking at the time when I’m in the kitchen. I love to work in the kitchen. And sometimes when I take [time] off, I tell my wife and family, ‘Nobody cook. Today, I make the food.’”
Alkadour’s passion for baking started when he was a teenager in Syria. He started to learn at home with his father and brother, then trained to become a chef after high school.
“When I finished my studies, I shared the business with my family. When the war started in Syria, everything was difficult, different,” he explains.
In 2013, he left Syria for Jordan. But, as a refugee, it was hard to find work. A couple years later, he got the call: “In October 2015, the [United Nations] called to and [asked] me if I’d like to come to Canada. This call was a surprise for me. This lady who called me, I think she’s joking with me because why choose me to come to Canada?”
At the time, Alkadour didn’t know anything about Canada. He told the woman on the phone that he’d have to think about it.
“I went home and I told my wife about this call and she said, ‘Why’d you tell her that? Why not say yes?” he laughs. “[The woman] called me back and I said, ‘Yes, of course, I need to go there.’”
And in January 2016, Alkadour and his family came to Ottawa.
When they first arrived, they stayed in a hotel with another Syrian family for about a month before getting an apartment.
While he was still living at the hotel, he was introduced to Bernard Lamontagne and his wife Lise, Ottawa residents who volunteered to help Syrian refugees like the Alkadour family settle into their life in Canada.
They helped with things like getting a driver's licence, setting up English lessons and school and showing them around the city. On one trip, Alkadour remembers the whole family went to try maple syrup for the first time.
“He showed me how the syrup coming from the tree, and how the people do it, we tried maple syrup with pancakes, and snow and maple sugar.”
Alkadour found a job in a bakery, but he was only getting a few hours per week. He wanted to start his own business and rent a small table at Billings Bridge Shopping Centre where he could sell his sweets.
Quick to support his idea, Lamontagne called the mall to find out what was required to set up a kiosk. He recalls being asked about his business name and a food safety licence, neither of which he had, but he had the information he needed to get started. After taking some courses at Algonquin College and finding a commercial kitchen to make his sweets, Alkadour was in business.
In November 2018, Alkadour Sweets opened its first kiosk at Billings Bridge Shopping Centre, selling a variety of treats and pastries. Shortly after, he expanded to Carlingwood Shopping Centre.
“In 2019, around Christmas time, my customer asked me how this next year [will go]. And I said, ‘2020, it is my year. You can see Alkadour everywhere in Ottawa.’”
Alas, for Alkadour and so many other small businesses, 2020 wasn’t the year he dreamed it would be. He remembers the day everything closed in March 2020.
“I’m just alone. All the stores closed. My table [was] in the middle. I remember this day because [I was] scared. Nobody [was] there.”
Then he started innovating. He decided to use social media to sell his wares and began delivering them, too.
As pandemic restrictions eased, Alkadour was able to reopen both his locations and in September, he opened a third kiosk — this one at Bayshore Shopping Centre.
His dream is to open small locations all across the city –– an Alkadour Sweets in every mall.
“I am late for my dream, but still going. It is very good for me [that] the city is open again. I saw too many businesses close.”
When Alkadour first opened his kiosk, he had a jam-packed schedule. He would shop Monday, bake Tuesday and Wednesday and sell Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday was his day off. But as his business has started to grow, he’s been able to add some extra support, with four workers who sell at the malls. But no matter how many locations he has, he still wants to be in the kitchen.
During the holiday season, he’ll be making lots of baklava and cookies.
“I’ll make cookies with ginger and cinnamon and some with lemon.”
His cookies are a family recipe, and the baklava is one of his favourites.
“Usually, you make baklava with syrup sugar or with honey. And I start to make here in Canada with maple syrup. I tried it. It is very good.”
A lot has changed since Alkadour’s trip to try maple syrup when he first arrived in Canada. Now, you can find his baklava with maple syrup (which is vegan) –– and many other sweet treats — at one of his three permanent locations.
Alkadour Sweets
facebook.com/alkadoursweets | 613.712.1008 @alkadoursweets
Find it at: Billings Bridge Shopping Centre, Carlingwood Shopping Centre, Bayshore Shopping Centre
Alkadour also has stands at the ByWard and Parkdale markets Saturdays and Sundays and in Manotick on Saturdays in the warmer months.
