Restaurant owner created blend of family, good food
Family members were at the hospital bedside of the 59-year-old former restaurateur when she died here Wednesday after a decadelong battle with colon cancer.
Mrs. Aboul-Hosn and her husband, Hikmat, owned and operated Kamalco Restaurant, known for its Middle-Eastern cuisine, at the corner of Bellevue Avenue and East Pine Street on Capitol Hill for six years in the 1990s. Before that, the couple had operated a smaller restaurant, Byblos, at Fifth Avenue and Blanchard Street in downtown Seattle, for nearly eight years.
As bookkeeper and office manager, she was at the heart of the family-run business, said her brother, George Faddoul of Seattle.
"They had a lot of repeat customers, and a lot of die-hard customers," many traveling long distances to visit the couple's restaurants, he said.
Mrs. Aboul-Hosn herself would travel long distances to patronize other restaurants. Her daughter, Camilia Kooki of Shoreline, said it was not unusual for her mother to load the family in a car with as many people as possible and drive to Portland for breakfast, or to Vancouver, B.C., for lunch, then return home the same day.
"She just loved to be surrounded by her family," said her brother.
Mrs. Aboul-Hosn and her husband, Shoreline residents, had lived in the Northwest since 1977, having fled civil war in Lebanon because their interfaith union had made life difficult in a climate of religious intolerance: She was Catholic, her husband a member of the Islamic Druze sect.
With their four children — the oldest 10 and the youngest 2 at the time — they moved to Seattle to be near her husband's brother, Kamal Aboul-Hosn, who operates his own restaurant, Mediterranean Kitchen, at the foot of Queen Anne Hill.
Mrs. Aboul-Hosn was born in Jal-El-Deeb, Lebanon. She and her husband were restaurant owners in Lebanon before emigrating. The couple left the restaurant business here after Mrs. Aboul-Hosn's cancer diagnosis.
Because restaurants and food were so much a family affair, holidays were great occasions in the Aboul-Hosn household. At home, Mrs. Aboul-Hosn's favorite dish was tabbouleh, a Lebanese salad of vegetables. At their restaurants, a favorite of patrons was her husband's spit-roasted chicken over pilaf. Kamalco gained a following as the choice for Seattle's budget-minded Middle Eastern diners: simple, authentic and affordable.
A son, Gus Aboul-Hosn of Seattle, operates a downtown Seattle restaurant, the Phoenician Grill.
Besides her son Gus; brother, George; daughter, Camilia; and husband, Hikmat; survivors include two other sons, Kamal of Phoenix, Ariz., and Rabih in Beirut, Lebanon; a sister, Nawal Sayah of Kenmore, and her mother, Marie Faddoul, in Beirut; two grandsons and a granddaughter.
A funeral Mass is scheduled today at 10 a.m. at St. Matthew Catholic Church, 1240 N.E. 127th St., with a reception afterward in the church's community hall. Donations are suggested to the church's memorial fund.