This pay-it-forward restaurant in Jordan is about to hit the road to serve more of its community

Night or day, visitors wandering the rolling caramel-colored streets of Amman will find themselves on the receiving end of a warm “ahlan wa sahlan”. The Arabic phrase is a kind of catchall for “welcome” or “hello”, but its more literal translation goes right to the heart of Jordanian culture: “You’re among family”. 

In Jordan, to be welcomed is to be fed. To share a delicately brewed cardamom-spiced coffee or cup of sweet mint tea. This deep sense of hospitality is a millennia-old tradition, threading itself from the region’s Bedouin roots through to contemporary Ammani life. And in a city where the population has almost doubled in just the last decade, food is a connective force, transforming Jordan’s largest metropolis into a home for myriad cultures.

“Amman is hospitality,” says Mahmoud Nabulsi, founder of Ezwitti, a pay-it-forward community restaurant in Jordan’s ancient capital city. “There is a long tradition in Jordan of feeding one another, dropping a plate to your neighbor to have it returned with another meal,” he explains. 

The volunteer-run Ezwitti takes this cultural cornerstone and multiples it over and over, offering free meals and—most importantly—a space for people to connect. “In Arabic, Ezwitti means ‘my backbone’ or ‘my support system’,” says Nabulsi. “It’s not just about food, it’s a social solidarity restaurant where we provide kindness and where we feed each other.”

“Our one and only golden rule here is: Not to judge. We don’t judge people based on their outfit, or based on their accent, or ethnicity. We just provide for everybody.”

- Mahmoud Nabulsi, founder Ezwitti

Disillusioned with the short-term and often unreliable nature of similar initiatives, Nabulsi, with his background in social aid and development, opened Ezwitti in 2015. He was determined to build a sustainable model that re-humanized and destigmatized the action of seeking charity, while inviting the whole community to be a part of that process.

The pay-it-forward aspect of Ezwitti is inspired partly by the Italian tradition of caffè sospeso (pending coffee), where a customer pays for an additional coffee, gifted to whoever might be next in line to order. But in Ezwitti’s case, this process is not-for-profit and relies on what Nabulsi describes as the ‘Golden Triangle’: Volunteers, inviters and invitees.

“Volunteers cook food, inviters [everyday patrons] buy a meal and then purchase a second one for a stranger by filling out a personalized invite and pinning it to a kindness wall,” he explains. After that, any individual (or ‘invitee’) in need can come and accept the invite for a free meal. No questions asked. Clientele is mixed. On any given day young students, elderly or—as is increasingly common—refugees might wander into Ezwitti.

Jordan is wedged in a geopolitical hotspot, sharing borders with Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. So, over the last decade, the safe and prosperous city of Amman has become a haven for refugees fleeing instability in the region. Food insecurity in these refugee communities is disproportionately high, and Nabulsi has witnessed the vital role Ezwitti plays in feeding and communing with so many displaced families. 

“Amman is a city for refugees,” he explains. “Every day, we serve people from all over—Palestinians, Sudanese, Somalis, Yemenis—and many Jordanians of course. Our one and only golden rule here is: Not to judge. We don’t judge people based on their outfit, or based on their accent, or ethnicity. We just provide for everybody,” he says.

Step foot inside Ezwitti, and your senses will be overwhelmed by classic Jordanian aromas. What’s being dished up changes day to day: Sizzling falafel; ladles of gallayet bandora (tomatoes sautéeed in garlic and olive oil); locally adored mfarakeh (aromatic potato and egg); creamy musabaha (chickpeas and tahini); or a chunk of nutty, fudge-like halva dessert.

When Ezwitti was established, in what was then a deserted back-alley of downtown Amman, Nabulsi says many doubted the model would work. “In its early days, we were feeding 25 people a week. Now, 250 come through its doors every single day,” he says.

Nabulsi attributes Ezwitti’s success to the 3,500 volunteers who have given their time over the last decade, but also to  something much less tangible—a contagious, ‘feel good’ sense that Ezwitti sparks within every individual who walks through its doors. This spark has helped transform both the restaurant’s neighborhood into a bustling community of shops, and the lives of its volunteers. 

In fact, it’s the volunteers who have been an integral part of sharing the Ezwitti story and helping grow its impact. Back in 2019, a German volunteer returned home and wrote an article about their experience working at the restaurant. This inspired a Lutjenburg restaurant to set-up an ‘Amman corner’. Now, every time someone buys a meal at that restaurant, they can ‘pay forward’ EUR€1 to cover a meal at Ezwitti. The model has also been successfully adopted by a restaurant in Alexandria, Egypt, a new branch is opening in Muscat, Oman at the end of this year, and there are plans to open a sister restaurant in the smaller Jordanian city of As-Salt, north of Amman.

“This grant is going towards a food truck service, which can mobilize between cities. It will use the same pay-it-forward model, but this way we can zoom around and provide meals where there is need.”

- Mahmoud Nabulsi, founder Ezwitti

Ezwitti is modest, yet mighty. But its capacity to keep growing an already successful model is exactly what The Intrepid Foundation—Intrepid Travel’s charitable arm and Ezwitti partner—pinpointed as being especially unique about the restaurant. And it’s what led Ezwitti to receive a USD$33,175 (AUD$50,000) recent grant from The Intrepid Foundation. 

“Innovation was one of the main criteria for our annual Impact grant program this year,” says Bethea Robertson, program manager of The Intrepid Foundation. “Ezwitti is small but really well done. They had dreams to expand the model outside of Amman, and identified that there was a lot of need in other areas of Jordan.”

Ezwitti is using The Intrepid Foundation Impact grant—largely funded thanks to Intrepid travelers who chose to donate one percent of their trip cost at the time of booking—to do just that. 

“We found that so many people were interested in replicating the model of Ezwitti,” says Nabulsi. “However, it can be very difficult to get off the ground. So this grant is going towards launching the ‘Ezwitti Mobile Unit’. It will use the same solidarity-meal model, but this way we can zoom around beyond our downtown location and provide food where there is need.”

The money will support refurbishing a step-van into a fully equipped mobile kitchen, and training women and youth to run it—Ezwitti, but on wheels. “The service will start in three underserved neighborhoods in Amman and one nearby rural area, running on a rotating weekly route,” says Nabulsi. Locations include community centers, markets, and areas identified as having high food-insecurity levels.

“Importantly, the mobile unit will also allow us to integrate surplus-food partnerships with local bakeries, hotels and produce markets,” he continues. “This means we’ll be able to rescue food that would otherwise go to waste, transform it into meals, and distribute them through the same dignified, prepaid-meal system we run in our restaurant.”

Nabulsi’s hope is that Ezwitti’s extraordinary vision will continue to ripple its way out into the world, one meal at a time. And he encourages anyone passing through Amman to drop by for a meal or to volunteer some time. “Everyone is welcome, always. Ezwitti belongs to the volunteers and this is the magic recipe.”

You can find out more about the 2025 grant recipients and even choose to make a small donation (with a big impact) for yourself via The Intrepid Foundation.

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