A Syrian restaurant in Toronto that made international headlines as a template for tolerance and refugee integration announced on Tuesday that it will be permanently closing after receiving a flood of “hate messages and death threats.”
In a message posted to its Instagram account, Soufi’s at 676 Queen Street W., said the decision to close was prompted by numerous threats received over the past week.
“Our decision is made with a heavy heart in effort to maintain our family and staff’s safety,” the message states. “We would like to thank our lovely customers and Queen Street neighbours for their wonderful support over the past two years.”
The restaurant was run by Husam and Shahnaz Al-Soufi, who immigrated to Canada in October 2015 with their three children, Alaa, Jala and Ayham.
Soufi’s opened in 2017, and was profiled in the New York Times as an example of successful integration of Syrian refugees.
“We were inspired to open up Soufi’s by our love for our Syrian culture, music, and delicious home-made food,” the family wrote on its website.
CityNews profiled the restaurant in January, 2018. At the time, general manager Jala Al-Soufi, said the restaurant gave Syrian refugees in Toronto a comforting taste of home, not to mention job opportunities.
“A lot of Syrian refugees have immigrated here in the past few years so we wanted to be able to offer them a piece of home,” she said.
“My father insisted on employing mostly Syrian newcomers to be able to create job opportunities for them and also we understand how difficult it is to move here with limitations in language and experience.”
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