A family that plays together stays together, and so does one that works together.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mohamed Nemer remembers how, from the age of seven, his daughter Samara would plead for him to one day open a restaurant.
Keeping his promise, Mohamed opened a restaurant with his family five years ago and named it Samaras.
Amid the array of canvas photos inside the Wollongong eatery is one of a woman making bread and another of a man picking peaches from a garden in the mountains of south-eastern Lebanon.
The Middle Eastern passion for food has been embraced by Mohamed and his children Omar, Macey, Alyca and Samara.
Omar took the photos of his grandparents during a recent trip back to Lebanon. He says preparing Lebanese food through the years has given him a sense of pride in his family's heritage.
The 22-year-old is mixing work at the restaurant with studying commerce at the University of Wollongong and playing AFL.
He says working with family has its ups and downs, restricting when holidays can be taken and leaving little time to catch up with friends.
But the hard work is definitely worth it.
"To get to where I am now [running a business] would have been hard work . . . it's because of the hard work my father has put in," Omar says.
He remembers how he was completing HSC exams in the week the restaurant opened.
"The first coffee I made was supposed to be a flat white and I made it with an inch of froth and chocolate," Omar says.
"We learned a lot in the first few weeks. It was definitely cloudy vision at the start."
Omar is adamant working with his sisters doesn't cause disagreements.
"Alyca's into spice, Macey is the creative one and Samara knows everything," he says.
One of Omar's favourite dishes he has learned from his grandmother is makloubeh, layers of eggplant, cauliflower, rice and meat cooked in a big pot.
"As she's cooking, it's great to watch her - not just to learn but to be in the presence of such talent."
Omar says it's a must to always have a family member working at the front of the restaurant so customers have a familiar face, but this also means the family is rarely together for dinner.
Mohamed, who was a taxi driver in the Illawarra for 15 years, says he travels to his homeland every year to get olive oil from the family orchard to use in his restaurant.
Of opening the family restaurant, he says: "It was a dream and the most important thing is that it was a hobby."
Mohamed admits there have been hard times, and working with his kids as teenagers was a test of patience. But he wouldn't change a thing.
"You know that when you have a hard time they'll stick by you and they can feel what you feel," he says.
"I enjoy every moment of it - it gives me self-esteem and satisfaction to make something."