Off the hookah: owner explains why he named his bar “ISIS”

As you can imagine, it’s causing him all sorts of problems. Now this Queens Coptic Christian is going to the media to clear things up.

From the In My Backyard Desk, via the New York Daily News:

Despite its menacing name, there are no beheadings on the menu at this Queens smoke spot.

The ISIS hookah bar in Astoria is actually run by a peace-loving Coptic Christian from Egypt who wants nothing to do with the blood-thirsty Islamic State barbarians.

“They’re terrorists — terrible people,” owner Michil Gadalla told the Daily News, speaking through a translator. “They give a bad reputation to my business.”

The jihadist group didn’t even exist when Gadalla opened up his hookah haven on Steinway St. in 2010. He named it after his first love, an Egyptian woman he met decades ago in his homeland.

Isis, as many of Gadalla’s customers will tell you, is also the name of an Egyptian goddess.

“Do some research,” one customer told a reporter. “You will see. It has nothing to do with those crazy guys.”

Before a few months ago, nobody paid much attention to the unfortunately named hookah bar. But these days, passersby regularly stop outside the sleepy smoke shop gawking at the store’s sign and snapping pictures.

“The other day I drove by here with my 16-year-old daughter and she looked at the sign and said, ‘What the f—?’ ” recalled customer Mahmoud Hassan, 48. “He picked the wrong name.”

Adele Mineo, who shops at a nearby butcher, said she did a double-take the first time she walked past Gadalla’s place. “You look at it and start thinking, ‘Why is it called that?’ ” said Mineo, 39, of Long Island. “It’s just bad timing, I guess.”

Read the rest.