Caspian Persian Bistro imports the taste of home

During its 39 years of business, the Stadium Village restaurant and market has fostered a rich history and a global menu for its customers 

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By Josie Wise / Hubbard Reporting Experience

For almost four decades, the Caspian Persian Bistro and Gourmet Marketplace in Stadium Village has crafted a rich environment of history and authentic Iranian and Persian food that serves a tight-knit community with vibrant characters. 

Yet from the outside, its presence in Stadium Village is unassuming, except for the elaborate blue and white decorative coverings that top its large picture windows overlooking University Avenue near 25th Avenue Southeast. 

The restaurant and marketplace imports food and products from all over the world — spices, teas, nuts, oils, olives and more — and crams those all into its small space adorned with tapestries and art from around the world. It is a place many customers regard as a home away from home. 

Nasser Alsh, a 19-year-old chemical engineering student at the University of Minnesota, said he goes to Caspian almost daily. The food and design of the place remind him of his home in Saudi Arabia, he said. 

“Seems to be ancient but cool at the same time,” Alsh said. “Also the smell of the place reminds me of my grandma’s house.” 

The complete package

Being near a college campus provides a built-in clientele, Hassan Ejakh, one of the owners of the Caspian, said. 

“A university setting such as this obviously invites people and draws people from all walks of life, being from, you know, foreign land as far away as China, as far as away from Myanmar,” Ejakh said. 

But the allure of the restaurant is more than its location. Ejakh said carrying products from people’s childhoods or home countries provides them with a sense of familiarity and home. 

“You always saw this big smile on their faces when they walked in and saw certain labels of certain food products,” Ejakh said. 

Providing the marketplace along with the restaurant gives people the complete package, allowing them to be served the flavors of home or make the meals themselves, Ejakh said. Food also creates a gateway to conversation and brings people together. 

“The ultimate goal was to try to introduce ourselves through our food as a culture,” Ejakh said. 

The first time Jean and Dick French, residents of St. Paul, visited the Caspian in 1986, Dick said the store and restaurant were not as extravagant as they are now.

“We kind of looked at it, and looked at each other and said, you know, ‘Do we want to eat here?’” Dick said.

They have been visiting Caspian two or three times a week ever since, Jean said. When Ejakh’s sisters were working as waitresses, they would sit and chat with the couple even if they were busy, Jean said. 

“They’re like family to us now,” Jean said. “We’ve been coming here for so long they’re just like extended family.”

Ejakh said he tries to make Caspian a welcoming place for everyone who walks through the door. 

“You don't know if there was something sad in their lives,” Ejakh said. “You have no idea. But when they, the minute they sit, they come in and then take a seat, that's when they need to forget about all of that.”

Some people have been visiting Caspian since before they were born, Ejakh said. Their parents were customers there, and their children grew up to work there later on. 

“I think some of these emotional values, and then the returns that we get on our investment, which is our effort, is priceless,” Ejakh said.

Financial challenges 

During the coronavirus pandemic, the restaurant struggled. Ejakh said they had to let go of their servers because they could not serve inside, and it was difficult to see them go.  

The lunch rush and dinner crowd disappeared, so they had to reduce the kitchen staff’s hours, but they would not let the staff go. The Caspian’s chef has worked there for 31 years, and the dishwasher for almost 20 years, Ejakh said. 

Recently, the dinner business is returning to normal, Ejakh said. They plan to start opening their doors earlier in the fall to regenerate the lunch business. 

Yet conflicts overseas provide challenges to getting imports, Ejakh said.

The reasons are varied, he said. Sometimes the people shipping do not want to be on the open sea because they might get robbed, or they do not want to enter high-risk territories where there is conflict, Ejakh said. 

As a result, a shipping container from the Middle East or China that would normally cost $8,000 might end up costing $60,000 to ship after delays, bidding to get the container and filling it with their product, Ejakh said. 

Ejakh said the restaurant’s food costs have quadrupled in the past three or four years and show no sign of slowing down. 

Costs of individual items also fluctuate. A case of lettuce might cost $26 one week and $63 the next, Ejakh said. 

Despite these struggles, Ejakh said he has not raised menu prices in five years. He said he cannot justify dumping the extra costs on regular customers who expect a certain price.

“You just keep going and just keep, keep, keep doing it, keep struggling,” Ejakh said.

Spices, halal meats and pomegranate sauce

A.J. Siddiqui, a 74-year-old from Pakistan, has been going to the Caspian for more than 30 years but said he is still trying new food. 

Siddiqui said he was having lunch and discussing politics with Siad Ali, a staff member for Amy Klobuchar. Ali ordered a pomegranate sauce that Siddiqui said they used on everything. 

“We put that sauce on our salad, we put that sauce in the tea, I put the sauce, ate the sauce with bread,” Siddiqui said. “I put it in the water.” 

Siddiqui said his wife often shops for spices, tea and nuts in the marketplace. 

“We grew up back home with this kind of stuff,” Siddiqui said.

Alsh said the Caspian is one of the only places he can readily find Middle Eastern food or halal meat. 

“If I go to Walmart, or like any other places, we won’t find halal chicken,” Alsh said.

Alsh said he enjoys the lamb shank from the restaurant and often buys his own from the market to make at home. 

Ejakh and his brothers used to help their uncles at their restaurants in Iran during the summertime, and experience and education in the travel and hospitality industries led them to open the Caspian. 

They are also importers of specialty gourmet foods from Europe and Canada, Ejakh said. 

“We have distribution in different parts of the country,” Ejakh said. “And we have warehouse facilities in four different parts of the country, including the Minneapolis area. And then from here, we ship products to different states.”

“Everything has a purpose”

The walls of Caspian are adorned with handmade Persian rugs. The paintings on the rugs are based on photos taken by Nasrollah Kasraian, an Iranian photographer. 

Ejakh said the rugs were collected over many years, and everything about them, including the frames, was handcrafted. 

A mural on the wall, above a space allowing customers to peek into the clattering kitchen, depicts the village of Masuleh, Iran. Ejakh said it took the artist seven weeks to complete.  

One time a customer was shocked to see the mural because it was his childhood home, Ejakh said. The customer was overjoyed to point to the exact house he grew up in, in which his mother still lived. 

Ejakh said the railing on the outdoor patio of the Caspian was handcrafted by a monk who built temples by hand. 

“If you look around here, everything has got a purpose, everything's got a history, everything's got a reason for being where it is, you know,” Ejakh said. 

That is, he said, another part of the satisfaction of Caspian.

“We spend most of our time here. We live here,” Ejakh said.