Itto’s Tapas - Khalid Agour

Khalid Agour - Interview Transcript

This started with our buddy, John. He runs the West Seattle Eagles Club and since the pandemic started, a lot of people need food, need a meal, whether they work or not, you know, it's for comfort. West Seattle has given us a lot when we went through this. So, our way to give back is to partner with John, he has a big kitchen. We can cook big and we said, "You know what, "we’re closed every Tuesday, we're gonna try to make this at least every other Tuesday, if possible, to do our best to give to our community, people in need”. And that's how it started.

It is important too because West Seattle is all about community. I live here, I work here, I love this, my kids are growing up here, my wife is from here. The people in West Seattle are just so giving and the amount of love and the emails that I've received and the phone calls, how can we help Itto's to stay afloat? What can we do to keep you guys from not going out of business? And that alone, that gave me joy and say, "You know what, even if I don't make any money, it makes me happy to give”, because when you give, you get back.

Yes, I have two different businesses, Itto's Tapas we started back in 2015 and that's in honor of our mom. That's where the name comes from. She passed away and the best way to honor her is by her name. Her name's Itto. That's Moroccan and Spanish tapas. The other business is fairly new. We just opened in December. It's a small coffee shop called Nos Nos in Highland Park, specializing in inspired Moroccan coffee and the Moroccan sandwiches, as well. So many in there you can't find anywhere. We try to be unique 'cause a lot of coffee shops here in Seattle, so to be unique, we throw in the Moroccan fusion to it and hopefully it'll prosper.

Here, the goal every Tuesday, in general, when John started, his goal is to feed about 150-160 people and that's what we do. So, every time we prepare meal, we prepare for 160 and 100 of 'em are gone within half an hour. It's a lot of people that actually come and get the meals. You have to credit John from the Eagles because they bust their bottoms up to keep everybody fed and keep them going.