FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #106 How A Family Food Truck Built Community With Falafel, Fire, And Grit
What if street food left you feeling lighter, energized, and ready for the rest of your day? We sit with Senna and Robbie of Shawarma Rama, the easy-to-spot mint green food truck serving Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, and Stafford, to unpack how fresh herbs, thoughtful prep, and smart workflow turn shawarma, falafel, and grilled steak into a craveable, feel-good meal. From the trio plate that showcases chicken, steak, and falafel to the spicy garlic and dill sauces that fine-tune each bite, we explore how flavor and wellbeing can live on the same plate.
Our conversation moves from family roots to food truck realities. They break the biggest myth—that you can park and serve instantly—by showing why time is a core ingredient. We get into how they plan like farmers through winter, reinvent menus for spring, and manage operations with a clean split of roles: Robbie runs the grill and logistics; Senna steers the menu, admin, and culinary craft. The result is consistency at the window and a service rhythm that honors freshness without slowing the line. If you’re dreaming of a food truck, their advice hits home: mean what you say, build strong work habits, be consistent, and protect your rest so you can perform when it counts.
The heart of Shawarma Rama is intention. Senna’s falafel—shaped like mini donuts for perfect texture—uses soaked chickpeas, vibrant herbs, and balanced spices sourced from local markets. Guests tell them they feel great after eating, which is exactly the point: street food that’s healthy, hearty, and far from greasy. Want to try it? Check schedules, order ahead for events, or book custom catering aligned to your budget and dietary needs at ramafxbg.com. If you enjoy these local stories and practical insights, follow the show, share with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more neighbors find us.
Senna and Robbie Al-Safari
Shawarma Rama
shawarmaramafxbg@gmail.com
(202) 905-3771
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to another episode of the FXBG Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. We have two favorite uh guests with us today. I'm very excited to introduce you to Senna and Robbie, and they are with Shawarma Rama. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4:Hello.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited to dive into this and get to know you and get to know your business. So let's start there. Please share with the listeners a little bit about Shawarma Rama.
Speaker 4:Okay, well, Shawarma Rama is a mint green wagon style food truck that's local in Virginia, West Virginia. What am I saying? In Fredericksburg, when Spotsylvania, City of Fredericksburg, and Stafford. It is a local street food vendor that is an addition to our community that includes the varieties that we have from tacos, burgers, and shawarmas right here in our town.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love your branding. Your truck is so cute. It's so easy to spot. So it's smart with the mint green. I love it. And you're clearly very popular because I see you everywhere. So congratulations on your success.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I want to hear the backstory. Tell me, tell me about you. I want to learn uh how I want to I want to know your journey. How did you get into this? How did you start the food truck?
Speaker 3:Okay, uh well, we we uh just like everybody else, we've always been a fan of really good food. And she's been cooking for our family as long as I can remember. And eventually we thought to ourselves, man, if everybody could have this food, they would. And we found the time, uh, and we made it happen, and thankfully we've gotten a good response, and everybody's liked it, not just me.
Speaker 1:Yes, everybody likes it. So if someone has never visited your food truck before and they were to walk up and they didn't know what to order, what what would you recommend they order from your food truck?
Speaker 3:I'll give you that one, because that you biased everything and and try to get as much of it on with the same spoon as you can. Just get everything. We have a uh a meal called the trio that has our steak, our chicken, and our falafel. Only one you can have it in a wrap, you can have it in a rice bowl. Uh, but you get those three proteins, and then you gotta get the spicy garlic sauce or the dill sauce. You get everything, it's it's not about one thing in particular. You want to have everything and the drink, and the drink, and the drink, for sure, especially if you get the spicy garlic sauce.
Speaker 1:Right, right. Senna, what's your favorite? What's your uh recommendation?
Speaker 4:Honestly, because of the color and the branding and what we're going after for fresh and healthy meals, um, it's the falafel. It I put so much time into it, and um falafels are either hit or miss. So I take my time to soak it, I take my time to season it, I get all the herbs and the seasonings I can get, the freshest from the farmer's market, from the best spices. I blend it all up, and when I serve that, it's in a shape of a mini donut. And you know, I have my dill sauce next to it or Tziki sauce. So I my favorite one is definitely the falafel, it just comes from the heart, it takes time and it's healthy, it's hearty, and it is good protein for you.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. So, let me ask you this: do you find that there are any myths or misconceptions when it comes to your business in particular, or maybe even the industry?
Speaker 4:One myth is that oh, as soon as the truck is parked, we can open the door and we can give you a sandwich right away, and it's just completely wrong, you know. That's um again, with with freshness comes time. It's not a drive-thru, it's not just we don't open the window and ready to serve. So as soon as we arrive to an event, we always ask for an hour just because we cook everything there, we prep everything there, and we mean freshness is literally like if we well, mostly when we go to the farmers markets from farm to table, from farm to consumer almost. So um, that when we show up, we're just not ready to serve, right? Give us an hour, or we'll come early to make sure we meet the timeline.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, nice. Do you find that it's difficult being a family in the business and finding time outside the business? How are you able to balance that? Or is that a myth in itself?
Speaker 3:No, well, we uh we definitely spend a lot of time on our business with each other, but it is a blessing to be able to spend as much time as we do with each other while we're doing our business. We're not we don't have to go do our business with a group of other people, we do our personal stuff and our professional stuff all together. So it's more of a help than anything because uh it helps us focus when we're not so focused. You know what I mean? Because it's all one thing, and we her and I have been best friends forever. So even whether we're working or playing, we're good at it, no matter what we're doing.
Speaker 4:And we're not like attached to the hip 24 hours. Honestly, he's doing his work out like more of operations outside, taking care of the truck, the watering, the propane refill, like very operational things that he had takes care of, which takes all day. And I do like the admin stuff, and we kind of regroup and say, Okay, what how are you doing? How you doing? We don't even have to talk about division of labor because it's like, oh, you're good at that, do it, you're good at that, do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we already know.
Speaker 4:Um, luckily, checklists help us. That's true. But um, we as much as like you think we are like working together, we're not like cutting tomatoes together or like putting them all together.
Speaker 3:One holding the tomato. We have like you said it's a division that works out great. Not every team, not every team has that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we can divide evenly, and we just maximize our strength. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:We work with it.
Speaker 1:I love that you called it a blessing. That's beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 1:It is and it's it's nice that you have someone who understands. So if you have one person who has, you know, a traditional nine to five office job, and then the other one is running this business, you know, there might not be you know the understanding of what you're going through and your schedule, and and you're in it together. And I I just really love that.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So when you're not working, what are you doing for fun? I need to know.
Speaker 4:Actually, we're trying to figure that part out.
Speaker 3:That is the hardest question. Um, I think let me go. Go, you go. I want to say that um it's all fun and games with us. Luckily, we were best friends before we even started this, so it's almost like a hobby. It's like this is our fun. We don't, it's like we don't work anymore almost. It's like this is the fun part of our day, and when we're not doing this working, we are resting. Yeah, we we try our best to rest, and then we we're we're people just like everybody else. We have families we have to check on, and uh if we have to make a run to go see somebody or help somebody or have somebody come help us, uh we're pretty regular people, we just work from home now.
Speaker 4:We work from home outside, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:There's no clocking in and clocking out, we're always clocked in, but it's cool because we're with each other, so yeah, we don't even know this.
Speaker 4:It is an important question. I I do value that question a lot because that it helps us think like, oh, like let's go for a walk, let's go enjoy nature, let's get out of this uh you know, routine and circle. So uh we appreciate the questions.
Speaker 3:We're gonna next year we'll have different answers. Yeah, different answers.
Speaker 1:Work in progress.
Speaker 3:That's right, yes.
Speaker 1:I love it. So let me ask you this if if someone were listening to the podcast and they were thinking, okay, this sounds amazing, maybe I want to open a food truck. What advice would you give them?
Speaker 3:Uh get your rest and mean what you say. As long as you mean what you say, you're gonna be alright. And you got as long as you get your rest, you're gonna be alright. And while you're up, you gotta be on it. But if you mean what you say, it ain't gonna be no problem.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it's it's all in addition to that, I would say um have very strong work ethics. There is um, like right now, we're heading into the winter days, cold days, and we have to be more motivated than ever because we have to think like farmers, you know, plan, prepare what is the summer looking like, what is the spring looking like, how am I going to reinvent our menu? What are we doing uh next? So um it is strong work ethics and it is consistency, just like working a muscle, you just have to continuously work on the business.
Speaker 1:That's really great advice. You never stop working on the business, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, what is something that you wish the listeners knew about Shawarma Rama?
Speaker 3:Uh that I'm not a chef. Okay, a lot of people see me outside cooking and I do the grilling and stuff, and some people ask me questions that I just don't have the answers to.
Speaker 4:Uh to where you're a great grill master.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that, but I don't always have all the the answers, and I wish she got all the questions. I would say that'd be one thing that I wish everybody would do, is ask her all the questions because I don't have the answers.
Speaker 1:They see you out front and they make the assumption, yeah.
Speaker 3:But you're the grill master, you are just I do run the grill. I do run the grill. But if they really if they want a good answer, ask the chef.
Speaker 4:Oh, thank you. I mean, that's a very um passionate question to me. I I wish they would know how much passion is is put into the meals we prepare, into the menu, into the flat, into completing a dish. Um, it's not just a wrap with meat and hand it over to you. It's complexity, it's layers, it's we're trying to get out of the stigma of street food being greasy and fried and lethargic. We we're almost gonna cry like when people come to me like, oh my god, um, I feel so great after eating your food. I have so much energy, it's refreshing. Um I wish people all people tried and knew how much healthiness we're putting into it and consciousness and prayers, and yeah, it's just yeah, no, like we follow our morals and ethics with it as much as we can.
Speaker 3:Whatever you put, what you put into it is what the customer gets out of it. You put your your life and your heart into it, and then that feeds their heart and their life so they they get the energy. Yeah, it's not like you either make double. Yeah, I never thought about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of love is put into it. Yeah, that's a good conclusion. I can tell. Well, I mean, it's it's kind of um it's kind of perfect, right? The two of you working together, I mean, and then you know, the heart that you put into the food. I just I feel a lot of love for your business.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:So if the listeners want to learn more from you, want to connect with you, want to know where you're gonna be next, what's the best way for them to find you?
Speaker 4:They can find our schedule on our website, it's ramafxbg.com. And when we're at an event, we are we allow our customers to order online in advance for that event, and they are able to do a pickup time and location. So uh if you just visit ramafxbg.com, you'll see our schedule, you see our menu, and uh definitely booking us is where you can try a full spectrum of a customized menu uh for you based on your budget and your diet needs.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. I love the convenience of being able to order ahead of time. Yes, that's awesome. Yeah, shout out to Mesa team. Mesa did that friend.
Speaker 3:Definitely.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. Well, Senna and Robbie, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing Shawarma Rama with me.
Speaker:Thank you, Dori. Thank you for having us. Thanks. Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to FXBG NeighborsPodcast.com.