Cairo Gate, a new Egyptian restaurant and cafe, is coming soon to Route 1 in Lawrence Township, and a freshly raised sign near Bakers Basin Road says it will serve koshary, grilled kebab and more. If it opens as advertised, it becomes the first Egyptian restaurant in Mercer County, New Jersey, a county of roughly 387,000 people that has never had one.
The timing is worth a second look. This little Route 1 storefront is arriving just as Egyptian food is having its loudest moment yet in America, with the national dish freshly added to a global heritage list and a string of dedicated koshary shops opening from Seattle to Greenwich Village.
A New Sign Goes Up on Route 1
Drivers along the Route 1 corridor near the Bakers Basin Road intersection started seeing it this spring: a large “coming soon” sign for an Egyptian restaurant and cafe, planted in front of a storefront beside the AAA Lawrenceville building. No menu has been posted, no hours, no opening day.
The space itself has lived several lives. Longtime locals remember it as a formal dress shop, the kind of place where Lawrence-area teenagers picked out prom gowns. Most recently it ran as a shop stocked with video games, music equipment and electronics. Now it is being fitted out for fava beans and a grill.
The restaurant appears to have operated online only before committing to the brick-and-mortar address, a common path for immigrant food businesses that test demand through catering and delivery before signing a lease. What the sign promises is specific: “authentic Egyptian cuisine like Koshary, grill, and more.” For a stretch of highway better known for diners and chain storefronts, that is a genuinely new flavor.
Koshary, Ful and the Grilled Plates on the Menu
If you have never eaten Egyptian food, the headline dish is the one to learn first. Koshary is Egypt’s national dish, a layered bowl of rice, lentils and macaroni topped with chickpeas, a spiced tomato sauce, a garlic-and-vinegar splash and a heap of crispy fried onions. It is vegetarian by default, cheap, filling and sold from street carts across Cairo. It is also the dish most likely to win over a first-time customer who has no idea what to order.
The “grill” half of the sign points to the meat-forward side of the kitchen: shawarma carved off a spit, plus kebab and kofta cooked over fire. The breakfast and home-style staples round it out. Here is what those names mean.
| Dish | What it is | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|
| Koshary | Rice, lentils and macaroni with chickpeas, tomato sauce and fried onions | Signature, vegetarian |
| Ful medames | Slow-stewed fava beans with cumin, garlic, lemon and olive oil | Breakfast classic |
| Ta’ameya (tamiya) | Egyptian falafel made from fava beans rather than chickpeas | Breakfast and street snack |
| Shawarma | Spit-roasted spiced meat, served in bread or on a plate | Grill |
| Kebab and kofta | Skewered grilled meat and spiced ground-meat skewers | Grill |
| Mulukhiyah | A thick green stew made from jute leaves | Home-style main |
Many Egyptians order ful and ta’ameya together as a single breakfast plate, often with pickled vegetables and fries. Whether all of these land on the final menu is unknown until the doors open, but the sign’s wording suggests a kitchen aiming for the real thing rather than a pared-down version for nervous newcomers.
Why New Jersey Anchors Egyptian America
A new Egyptian spot in central New Jersey is less surprising once you look at who lives here. New Jersey holds the largest Egyptian community of any state, and it is the only one where Egyptians form the majority subgroup within the broader Arab-American population.
- More than 44,000 New Jersey residents trace their roots to Egypt, by census-based counts.
- The state’s Arab-American population has more than doubled since the Census Bureau first measured ethnic origins in 1980.
- Egyptian and Palestinian ancestry have shown some of the fastest growth in the state since 2005.
That growth has reshaped the food map. Paterson’s Main Street, often called the heart of Arab New Jersey, runs thick with shawarma counters and kunafa shops, and Jersey City has become a place to buy the specific ingredients Egyptian home cooks need. Researchers at Rutgers have flagged how the federal classification of Arab populations in census data still undercounts a community this size, which means the real footprint is likely larger than the official tallies show. What has been missing is reach into the suburbs south of that corridor.
Koshary’s UNESCO Win Pushed the Dish Onto US Menus
There is a bigger current running under this storefront. In December 2025, koshary was inscribed on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, a decision made during the committee’s meetings in New Delhi. It was the first Egyptian dish to earn the status, and the 11th Egyptian entry on UNESCO’s heritage lists tied to Egypt.
The recognition put a global spotlight on a food that Americans are only starting to discover. Koshary remains rare on US menus, but the gaps are filling fast. New York City has Khusharista in Greenwich Village. Arlington, Virginia has King of Koshary. Seattle has a family-run vegetarian koshari kitchen in Ballard, and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania has its own koshary-focused spot.
Each of those is a marker of the same shift: a cuisine moving out of home kitchens and diaspora enclaves into standalone restaurants that expect non-Egyptian customers to walk in. A koshary counter on Route 1 fits that pattern exactly. The customer base is no longer only the Egyptian families nearby; it is curious foodies who read about the UNESCO nod and want to try the dish for themselves.
Is This Mercer County’s First Egyptian Restaurant?
As far as a search of the area shows, yes. The county has Lebanese, Turkish and other Middle Eastern options, but no dedicated Egyptian restaurant on record. The closest ones sit a real drive away.
- Hillsborough in Somerset County, to the north.
- Woodbridge in Middlesex County, up the Turnpike.
- Mays Landing in Atlantic County, well to the south.
For a community this large, that is a notable hole, and it is part of New Jersey’s wider Middle Eastern dining map that has long skipped the suburbs between the Paterson corridor and the shore. A storefront on a high-traffic highway, next to a recognizable anchor, gives the cuisine a foothold in a part of the state it had not reached. No opening date has been posted yet; the sign on Route 1 is the only confirmation so far.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Cairo Gate located in Lawrence Township?
It is on Route 1 near the Bakers Basin Road intersection, next to the AAA Lawrenceville building. The same storefront previously held a formal dress shop and, more recently, a video game and electronics store.
When does the new Egyptian restaurant open?
No opening date has been announced. The signage only says “coming soon,” and the business appears to have run online before fitting out this physical location, so the buildout is still underway.
What food will it serve?
The sign lists koshary and grill items. Egyptian menus in this style typically extend to ful medames, ta’ameya (Egyptian fava-bean falafel), shawarma, kebab, kofta and mulukhiyah, though the final menu has not been published.
Is it the first Egyptian restaurant in Mercer County?
It appears to be. No other dedicated Egyptian restaurant in the county turns up in a local search. The nearest ones are in Hillsborough, Woodbridge and Mays Landing.
What is koshary, the dish on the sign?
Koshary is Egypt’s national dish: a vegetarian bowl of rice, lentils and macaroni with chickpeas, spiced tomato sauce, garlic vinegar and crispy fried onions. UNESCO added it to its intangible cultural heritage list in December 2025.
