Pink Pistachio Cafe has generated buzz and excitement within the Grandview area. Credit: Jack Like | Lantern Reporter
Central Ohio has another high-end cafe to try, as Pink Pistachio Cafe is now open in Grandview.
Located at 1072 Dublin Rd., Pink Pistachio owner Ishrat Ilyas said the cafe opened on Friday with plenty of fanfare.
“It was absolutely crazy,” Ilyas said. “We had a non-stop wait time for two hours, all day — from opening to closing.”
Ilyas said the Grandview location is Pink Pistachio’s second restaurant and its Columbus debut, which he owns with his sister and brother-in-law.
“This is our second kitchen,” Ilyas said. “We opened the first Pink Pistachio Cafe in South New Jersey … in January last year,” Ilyas said.? “This is a family-owned business. This is not a franchise — everything is created from us, including all the recipes and the whole menu.”
Ilyas said Pink Pistachio is a new concept and is part of a larger group of restaurants he owns and has expanded over the past few years. He said one restaurant in particular gave him the confidence to expand his restaurant empire.
“I have five other restaurant brands that started in 2021,” Ilyas said. “Among these is the Lahore restaurant in Secaucus [N.J.], which is one of the most famous Pakistani restaurants in the USA. From there, I thought, ‘Damn, I’m good at this.’”
Ishrat’s sister, Farah Ilyas, said she will be running the Columbus location. She said her family shares a love for food and traveling, which helped motivate them to open multicultural restaurants in the U.S.?
“I like traveling,” Farah Ilyas said. “I travel to Dubai and London. They have all these nice cafes that are very different from here. I grew up in Jersey City all my life, we didn’t have these high-end cafes. We decided to open this, and it’s an absolute hit.”
Ishrat Ilyas said multiculturalism is reflected in the food menu, which is Americanized but also includes halal meat.
“We have typical Western food that just happens to be halal,” Ishrat Ilyas said. “We have the breakfast omelets and the croissant sandwiches; We have crepes, desserts and a lot of French pastries. Our coffee is a very special coffee that we get specially sourced from Ethiopia.”
Farah said that she has noticed how Pink Pistachio Cafe has brought people from different cultures and backgrounds together around food.
“The clientele is amazing,” Farah said. “The best thing is it’s very diverse — If you look throughout the restaurant, people of all nationalities come here.”
