Musa Dajani, the Dajani group: Engineering variety

Musa Dajani, an engineer by trade, and mastermind behind some of the city’s most successful venues, loves design. His eyes light up when he describes the concepts behind his ventures, which include Nihon, Tsunami Sushi, Bar 821, Café Abir, and soon Corkage Sake and Wine shop. “None is a replica of anything, it makes it harder to run the business, but more exciting!” It is even more impressive to consider the spaces when one realizes that almost everything, from the heavy doors to the unique metalwork, is executed in-house by Dajani’s team of talented craftsmen based on his original designs. He also sources remarkable materials, from the acid-etched concrete tiles at Bar 821, to the exotic Bubinga wood slab from Africa that forms the bar at soon-to-open Corkage, to the white Malaysian pebbles in Nihon.

Quality is Musa’s foremost concern, and this extends from the materials he uses, to the food and drink available at his café, bars, and restaurants. His motto, he says, is “If you do something well, it will carry itself.” Indeed, one of the big reasons that this Palestinian, who has now lived in SF for 22 years, owns two Japanese restaurants, other than his love of sushi, is that he respects the Japanese enormously: “Everything they do is the best, it works well with our motto.”

It is obvious that Musa Dajani is doing what he loves. “Yes, you have to find that personal thing that you like, and then make it a business.” Café Abir, for example, named after Musa’s sister, was created because, Musa says, “I thought it would be the best thing to have friends hang out in a café you own.” He has aimed to make the design of Café Abir comfortable, and not intimidating, in order to encourage people to come back often, to be regulars. Musa himself begins nearly every day with a stop at Café Abir. He explains that they just finished remodeling the café, but left it much the same. Sometimes you don’t want to mess with a winning formula. And it’s not just the customers who are loyal. The staff in Dajani Group’s restaurants tend to stay for a long time. “8 years, 5 years, 6 years, I take pride in that.” He says that, while he loves to design the spaces and spend time in his venues, the food is left to the chefs: “We hire the best possible bartenders and chefs, and the result speaks for itself.” Musa also makes sure they have the best possible selection of Sake and Whiskey, and soon wine.

The day-to-day management of the office is supervised by another Dajani sibling, Khaled, making this very much a family affair. “It’s the perfect collaboration,” says Musa. “We see eye-to-eye on things, and each have our roles.” This leaves Musa somewhat free to work on other design projects, many of which are food-related venues, including City College Café, Herbivore in Berkeley, and four projects for SF State. Owning his restaurants helps him to understand what works best in terms of design and layout. “Sometimes architects can miss something that I would know from my restaurant experience.” A new Tsunami Sushi opens this April in Mission Bay.