Gourmet magazine may now be a thing of history, but the only Terre Haute restaurant ever featured in the legendary food bible is still going strong.
George’s Downtown Cafe, on the south side of Cherry Street near Sixth Street, is in its third decade of serving up comfort food to a broad array of people who grew up with very different ideas of just what comfort food means.
To Abdullah “Albert” Issa, who cooks and runs the restaurant for his brother, George Issa, the food he fondly remembers Grandma making is falafel, kibby, grilled eggplant, gyros, lamb and bean stew, tabbouleh and baba ganoush. Albert, George and their brother, Nick, immigrated to Indiana but grew up in northwestern Lebanon, in the hill town of Hamed, which sits above the Mediterranean Sea.
Those Lebanese dishes make up half of the menu at George’s and draw fans of Middle Eastern cuisine from all over the Wabash Valley.
Equally enthusiastic, though, are the customers for whom “comfort food” means burgers, fries, chili cheese dogs, BLTs, breaded tenderloins and deep-fried fish sandwiches served on double-sized buns. That kind of fare makes up the other half of the menu at George’s, along with a complete array of traditional American breakfast plates that includes pancakes, omelets and biscuits and gravy.
Albert does it all.
In fact, in the four years since I wrote about him and the restaurant for a then-thriving Gourmet, Albert has expanded the definition of “all.” Several cross-over dishes, such as Lebanese grilled cheese, which used to be the exclusive purview of a few regulars, are now official menu items.
Perhaps the biggest gift to everyday diners is “Ladies Bread,” a flat, hand-rolled, flour-based, grilled bread that Albert pulled from the semi-secret vault and put on the menu last autumn.
It is called, “Ladies Bread,” because Albert’s male customers used to jokingly accuse him of offering it only to women.
Ladies Bread is what encases the Lebanese Grilled Cheese, for which I must take fractiontial credit. Addicted to the grilled bread and inclined toward feta cheese and Albert’s parsley-heavy tabbouleh, I asked him if he could come up with something. Boy, did he.
Plentiful chunks of feta go soft around the bright green chopped parsley that is tossed with chopped tomato, scallions, cracked wheat, olive oil and lemon juice. Ask, and Albert will arrange some of his zingy, home-cured dark olives around the sandwich. Or, as with most of his dishes, if you’d like a little something else folded in — say, Lebanese hot sauce or cucumber-yogurt sauce — speak up.
Albert aims to please.
The newer menu at George’s includes a “Lebanese Cuisine Key” that describes most of the dishes and sauces available. They include tabbouleh, baba ganoush, falafel, gyro meat or “shawarma,” hummus, kibby, pita, baklava and the TNT hot sauce, shuta.
Tzaziki, the Greek name for the sumptuous cucumber-yogurt that is whisked with olive oil, garlic and lemon, is the lone ID omission. But you can just ask for “cucumber sauce.”
Vegetarians tend to be very happy at George’s, by the way, because Albert’s Lebanese palate is a Mediterranean one, which venerates vegetables, beans and grains instead of treating them like some necessary evil side dish to be ignored in favor of huge hunks of meat.
Falafel patties, an exotic blend of chick peas, fava beans and secret ingredients, are deep-fried extra-crispy and usually tucked into a pita pocket with an accompaniment such as hummus or Tzaziki and tabbouleh. Grilled eggplant is not available every day, but when it is, it is a succulent, melt-in-the-mouth entree that could make almost anyone forget meat.
Not that a person can’t get a huge hunk of meat at George’s.
Albert is known for his big, juicy burgers that start from freshly ground lean beef, not frozen hamburger patties. Naturally, they can be topped with anything from American cheese and bacon to feta and tabbouleh. A side of fries — or better still — seasoned fries with their salty/crispy outer coating make a burger one of the great diner indulgences around. (Seasoned fries with a little dipping sauce of hummus, baba or Tzaziki are a perfect cross-cultural affair for some.)
And we must not give short shrift to the mighty Midwestern tenderloin sandwich. Like most serious tenderloin purveyors in this area, Albert’s breaded, deep-fried T-loin is way too big for one or even two buns. Folding it in half (or thirds) helps if a person is determined to leave without a doggie bag. The pork is pounded thin, but not to transparency (a problem in some restaurants) and it is jacketed in what turns out to be a light but ultra-crunchy breading that somehow never hits the plate remotely greasy.
Similarly, Albert’s fish sandwich has an almost sweet coating (some cornmeal, maybe?) that protects the delicate, moist fish inside and provides audible crunch outside.
Albert works the same magic on his falafel and kibby “footballs,” rendering them unmistakably deep-fried, but mitigating the guilt along with the cooking oil when he finally transfers them into a pita pouch or round of Ladies Bread.
Kibby, which is a mixture of ground steak, cracked wheat and spices, can be ordered either hand-formed into football shapes for deep frying, or it can be flattened and grilled. The latter, with two little sides of Tzaziki and tabbouleh, makes for one light but satisfying lunch.
Salads used to be fairly straight forward in the greens department, heavier on the iceberg than the romaine, but Albert — ever amenable — has expanded his lettuce offerings to include spring mix, mostly in answer to his regulars’ suggestions.
Besides, in a salad such as the Greek, which comes with tomato, feta, Albert’s cured olives and Italian dressing, the lettuce is only a bit player. Opt for the addition of a generous fistful of grilled chicken chunks — and ask for only olive oil and lemon juice as a dressing — and you have what regulars refer to as an “Albert salad.” (He perfected it when he was on a rare diet.)
George’s Downtown Cafe is open for early breakfast through late lunch and the occasional special party. Everything Albert cooks up is available for catering, including those fabulous, tangy olives. Chili is a daily offering along with another featured soup, Monday through Thursday. Fans of lentil soup know it usually will be bubbling on Thursdays; chicken and rice (or dumplings) tends to make the menu earlier in the week. Most of the soups can benefit from a little salt, but they never need pepper.
Albert loves to cook with what he calls his “spiceys.”
Late last year, George’s interior got a minor facelift, with a middle row of booths in the main dining room being replaced with tables. Albert’s collection of fan mats — paper serviettes decorated by visiting school children who rave about the food — grew even larger and now covers much of the diner’s wall space.
A friend of Albert’s also created a more compact menu with a drawing of Albert on it that makes him look a lot like former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka. On the back page of the folding menu, where beverages, desserts and the Lebanese Cuisine Key are printed, Albert’s friend chose to add this slogan:
“Terre Haute’s Favorite Lebanese Diner, where Everyone is a Foreigner!”
As regulars of George’s Downtown Cafe know, that’s a major compliment.

George’s Downtown Diner is in the old Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce Building at 627 Cherry St. It is open Monday-Friday from 6:45 a.m. until 4 p.m., and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Breakfast is served all day — except for French Toast and pancakes, which stop at 11 a.m.
Prices range from $1.50 for a hot dog to $9 for lamb and vegetables, when the lamb is available. Sandwiches are all under $4, as are most burgers. Fries run $1.95 with onion rings or seasoned fries at $2.25. A big bowl of soup is $2.25, a large chef’s salad is $4.75. Lebanese plates are mostly in the $6 range, but a huge chicken and veggie plate is $9. Delicious gyro sandwiches are under $5. Most days there is a special, Albert’s taco salad being one of the most popular. The only breakfast item over $5 is George’s Hearty Breakfast, which offers three eggs, three strips of bacon, three sausage links, hash browns, toast and coffee or tea for $5.75.
Alcohol is not served at George’s, just soft drinks, milk, juice, iced and hot tea and coffee. Sometimes, if you ask, that coffee will be the gritty, delicious Lebanese variety that is served in tiny cups. No credit cards or checks are accepted (yet), but if Albert knows you, and you forgot to get cash at the ATM, you can pay him next time you come in.

Other articles by Stephanie Salter

• Forbidden Fruit No More - January 1st, 2010
• Still Fresh - November 1st, 2009