Dabboos didn’t start the way it looks today.

When we launched, our menu was unapologetically Arabic — heavy on bone-in chicken, deep on traditional flavors, built around the idea that an Arabic fried chicken brand should taste Arabic first and modern second. We believed in it. We still do.

But a menu is a conversation, not a monologue. And the conversation our guests were having with us told a different story. They wanted the Arabic soul we were offering — but they wanted it in forms that fit how they actually eat: tenders they could share, grilled rice bowls they could take to the office, saj wraps they could eat one-handed in the car on the way home.

So we listened, and we pivoted.

Today’s Dabboos sits at an intersection we think is honest to both where we come from and where our guests actually live. The flavors are a mix — Arabic roots, Western forms, Jeddah-native sensibility. The tenders, the rice bowls, the saj wraps, the sauces we make from scratch — that’s where our guests meet us now, and we’re proud of that.

The bone-in? We pulled it — for now. Not because we stopped believing in it, but because we want to bring it back right. When we do, it’ll be a product worth the wait. We’re working on it.

Why we do what we do

We’re building Dabboos in a moment where everyday costs keep climbing and everyday people keep getting squeezed by the weight of life’s commitments. Eating out used to be a small pleasure anyone could afford. Increasingly, it isn’t — especially in the middle of the month, and in the stretch right before salaries land, when dining-out options quietly shrink for most families.

We don’t think that’s okay. A community deserves a place like Dabboos that feeds it well without making it choose between quality and price — a place that stays within reach every week of the month, not just the first one. So that’s the standard we hold ourselves to: real food, made carefully, at prices our neighbors can actually pay, any day of the month.

It’s not a marketing position. It’s the reason we get up in the morning.

What’s next

Over the next three years, we’re taking Dabboos to Saudi Arabia’s major cities — one thoughtful opening at a time, not a land grab. The menu will keep evolving too, always measured against the same question: is this something that genuinely serves the families and working people we built Dabboos for?

If you’ve eaten with us, thank you. If you haven’t yet — we’d love to feed you.