Habibi Supper Club is becoming a brick-and-mortar restaurant on East Passyunk Avenue

Since launching Habibi Supper Club several years ago, Miled Finianos has built a following for his intimate Lebanese dinners in borrowed spaces across Philadelphia.

Now, he’s putting down roots.

Finianos has signed a lease for his first brick-and-mortar restaurant at 1515 E. Passyunk Ave., across from Ember & Ash and down the block from the new Love & Honey Chicken. If construction and permitting cooperate, he hopes to open in October or November.

The restaurant will be a BYOB seating about 25, serving daytime brunch and lunch before transitioning into Habibi’s ticketed supper clubs on weekend nights.

Habibi — an Arabic term for “my love” — launched in December 2023 as a series of dinners built around Lebanese flavors, communal dining, and Finianos’ modern interpretations of dishes from the Levant. The name also reflects the spirit he hopes to cultivate.

“I don’t want there ever to be a paywall behind culture,” Finianos said. “I want it to be highbrow, lowbrow.”

The space itself is an unlikely fit for a restaurant – a former accountant’s office, a detail Finianos finds amusing given that he worked as an accounts-payable accountant for Insomnia Cookies. He quit last August in anticipation of another restaurant deal that ultimately collapsed, then spent nine months searching for the right location in South Philadelphia.

“I feel like Habibi is very tied to the identity of South Philadelphia — East Passyunk and the Italian Market,” he said.

The plan calls for a full buildout, including outdoor seating, a restored front window, flower boxes, and a garage bay converted into a glass-fronted facade inspired by nearby industrial-chic spaces.

By day, Finianos envisions Habibi as a late-breakfast and lunch spot open roughly from 10 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m.

Shakshuka will likely make an appearance, but he is more excited to introduce dishes less familiar to many Philadelphians, such as fatteh (chickpeas layered with tahini yogurt and fried pita) and awarma (confit lamb served with eggs, labneh, or hummus).

“There’s so much savory breakfast in Lebanese and Levantine culture,” he said. “It’s Mediterranean food, so it’s healthy and light. You don’t feel like you just ate a whole pound of sugar.”

Finianos plans to continue Habibi’s supper clubs three nights a week — Thursday through Saturday — preserving the format that helped build his following while allowing him to experiment more freely. “That’s when I get to color outside the lines,” he said.

Born in Lebanon and raised between there and Miami, Finianos moved to Philadelphia seven years ago after a visit in early 2018 coincided with the Eagles’ Super Bowl run.

“I was wondering why everyone was so nice and in a good mood,” he said. “I found out later why.”

He settled first on South Street, then near the Italian Market, and now in Dickinson Narrows, where he lives an eight-minute walk from the future restaurant.

During the pandemic, Finianos began teaching himself to cook through YouTube videos and posting food content online as Miled Eats. After hosting dinners for friends, he began opening them to the public, first at his home, then at venues including R&D Cocktail Bar, and El Chingon. He’s also due to start a residency at the soon-to-open Lillian’s in South Philadelphia.

Hospitality, he said, quickly became addictive.

There’s restaurant history in the family, too.

In the 1970s, his grandparents and relatives operated Sam’s Pizza at 12th and Pine Streets — which later was Pine Street Pizza, where Kiddo is today — before returning to Lebanon in the 1980s.

“When they moved back to Lebanon, they operated restaurants and were the first to introduce hoagies and cheesesteaks to my town [Zgharta], where I grew up,” he said. “So I always carry that with a little pride.”