Hashem Abbasi, owner of the Afghan Kabob Restaurant in Springfield, has a friendly smile and a strong handshake. Inside the dimly lit restaurant, it smells deliciously oriental, and Afghani music mixes with the clatter from the kitchen and the chatter of diners. The waiters offer chai to newly arriving costumers. “That's the way we do it in Afghanistan,” Abbasi said about the custom of offering tea to guests.

Times Staff Photo/Brian Price Flames rise through a row of kabobs as they cook at Afghan Kabob in Burke.

When his family left Afghanistan and moved to Pakistan, Abbasi was almost 10, he said. After spending five years in Pakistan, they came to the United States in 1994.

“This is my country,” he said.

Abbasi, who attended Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax graduating in 1997, said he always dreamed of owning a restaurant and worked hard to get it. After graduation, he worked two jobs: one at his brother's restaurant in Alexandria and another at a different restaurant.

“I learned from the best,” he said about his brother.

In 2001, he opened the Afghan Kabob Restaurant. He said he loves his work and customers and wants to bring the Afghan culture closer to his mainly American clientele.

One way he does this, Abbasi said, is that during Ramadan he gives a free ifta, the meal that breaks the fast after sundown, to his costumers.

He also picked the pictures that hang in the restaurant and made sure they had some historical or cultural value, he said.

He pointed to the picture next to him. It shows the Blue Mosque in Mazar-e Sharif, a flock of white doves flying in front of it.

“Why do you think the birds are all white?” he asked. “Customers have been asking me that, and I didn't know, so I researched until I found the answer. When someone has a prayer, he brings a bird to the mosque, and, when he returns to it a couple of days later, the bird turned white.”

Abbasi said he takes every challenge that comes his way.

“I love the people here,” Abbasi said, noting that his customers have supported him during difficult times.

After 9/11, he said, many regulars gave him checks “in case business went slow.”

“I still have the checks,” he added but said he has had no need for them.

A year later, in 2002, the restaurant burned down, and it took Abbasi two years to reopen. He was not sure if he would open the restaurant again.

“It was closed for a long period,” he said, but customers kept asking him to reopen.

“That's why I love this place,” he said, adding that it was “exciting for me to open back up.”

Abbasi also does not mind competition. It is when a new restaurant opens in the neighborhood that he works at his best, he said.

“I love competition,” he said. “I get excited. If you do good things, you get good things.”