SYDNEY — Jenan's Syrian Kitchen is moving one street closer to the harbour.

After three years at their George Street location, the restaurant — specializing in traditional Syrian food — will reopen at 193 Charlotte St., once minor renovations are complete.

The restaurant is owned by Ahmad Alhsso and Jenan Alahmad, Syrian refugees who moved to Cape Breton in 2017 with their children, and their business partner Ahmed Barakat, a Cape Breton University business graduate.

Speaking to the Cape Breton Post on Saturday, outside their old 270 George St., location while packing his car with the last of their belongings from the leased space, Alhsso said they expected to reopen within two weeks.

The move came after the building where they first opened at 270 George St. was sold.

"We have been here for three years," said Alhsso.

"Maybe at the new location on Charlotte Street it will be busier."

Alhsso, Alahmad and their children were one of eight refugee families to settle in Cape Breton over three years. Sponsored by Munroe Academy Response Syria Group, the family is from Aleppo, Syria.

In 2013, shortly after the war broke out in Syria, they fled to Turkey where Alhsso worked in construction. In 2014, they began the application process to come to Canada under refugee status.

“I found there was nothing worth staying for in Syria. There was no jobs, no education, no security for my children,” Alhsso told the Cape Breton Post in an interview a few months after they arrived in 2017.

Two years to the date of their first interview with the Post, Jenan's Syrian Kitchen opened. Using Alahmad's recipes and expertise in the kitchen, the menu offers traditional Syrian foods like manakish, shawarma wraps and kibbeh, which is made fresh daily.

They also feature items like koussa, a stuffed squash dish, recently added to the menu.

Alhsso said business has been "good" at the George Street location and he hopes being on Charlotte Street will help them build on their current business.