Co-owner Fadi Alhour prepares freshly made booza, a Middle Eastern ice cream, at an ice cream cart inside his cafe, Roast & Toast, in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

There's no shortage of gourmet dishes found along North Berkeley's bustling Shattuck Avenue, with iconic businesses like the Cheese Board Pizzeria and the celebrated Chez Panisse. Recently, a new cafe has joined the lineup, offering a cold treat rarely found in the Bay Area.

Perched on the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Francisco Street is newcomer Roast & Toast, which opened in January and has amassed a large fan base for its hard-to-find booza, a unique Arabic ice cream. Booza is denser than regular ice cream and has a stretchy consistency thanks to its core ingredients of salep (a flour made of orchid tubers) and mastic gum (a natural resin). Since adding booza to the menu in April, co-owner Fadi Alhour has been working tirelessly to keep up with demand.

"I usually spend my whole day making it at the shop," Alhour said. "We're the only one in Berkeley that makes it fresh every day."

Cups of booza, a Middle Eastern ice cream, topped with rose petals, phyllo dough and crushed pistachios at Roast & Toast in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Booza is available at only a few businesses around the Bay Area, including Dalida in San Francisco and Levant Dessert in Menlo Park, but the Middle Eastern dessert isn't widely found across the region. When Alhour added booza to his menu earlier this year, it piqued the interest of locals in a big way. With only a few months on the menu, Alhour says that booza has already made up about 90% of his sales.

"People seem to love the texture, and they love the flavor," Alhour said. "They're telling their friends and they're coming back, so the demand is getting higher and higher each day."

When customers step inside Roast & Toast, they'll find a designated booza cart to the left of the main entrance where four flavors - original, cardamom rose, salted caramel and dark chocolate - oscillate inside a gelato maker. The cafe offers single or double scoops of booza, priced at $6 or $12, that can be topped with crushed pistachios, rose petals and shredded phyllo dough.

Co-owner Fadi Alhour offers a customer a taste of freshly made booza, a Middle Eastern ice cream, at an ice cream cart inside his cafe, Roast & Toast, in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Servings are generous, too. On a recent Thursday, I joined the masses to try the unique ice cream for the first time. At the booza cart, a staffer dipped a wooden sample spoon into the original booza flavor and then plunged it into shredded phyllo dough. He handed me the spoon and patiently waited for my reaction.

My eyes widened as I savored the lovely, subtle floral notes, and I was taken aback by the chewiness of the ice cream, which was unlike anything I had ever had. Visually, booza almost mimics the appearance of a melted marshmallow being stretched. The staffer smiled, as if knowing I would love it, before handing me samples of cardamom rose and salted caramel. The flavors were much bolder than the subtle notes of the original booza, and I promptly ordered a scoop of the two.

Co-owner Masood Abualsoud prepares freshly made booza, a Middle Eastern ice cream, inside Roast & Toast in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Co-owner Masood Abualsoud puts a toping of pistachios on freshly made booza, a Middle Eastern ice cream, at Roast & Toast in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Cups of booza, a Middle Eastern ice cream, topped with rose petals, phyllo dough and crushed pistachios at Roast & Toast in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

The staffer dipped metal tongs into the booza. Long, thick cords of ice cream trailed behind the tool as he moved his arm upward. After scraping the frozen treat into the cup, he went back for more until the cup was stacked with a hefty mound of ice cream. He dipped the cup into the two separate bowls holding pistachio and rose petals before handing over the adorned ice cream. More customers wandered over to the cart to place their own orders.

Alhour spends hours a day making the booza from scratch. He begins by grinding imported mastic gum from Greece or Turkey and then adds it to a pot of boiling milk that's cooked until thickened. Off heat, the milk cools to room temperature, is flavored with rose water and then is stored in a fridge for several hours. Unlike the traditional way of preparing booza, which uses a long mallet to pound it down and add texture, Alhour prefers using a gelato machine that helps churn and simultaneously freeze the ice cream at a faster pace. Alhour also said he likes making smaller batches to keep things fresh. Throughout the week, he'll make about 4 gallons a day. On weekends, he triples production.

Co-owner Masood Abualsoud prepares freshly made booza, a Middle Eastern ice cream, for Liz Hoadley at an ice cream cart inside Roast & Toast in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

It's a timely and costly product to make. Each week, Alhour said he spends about $1,000 on a kilogram of mastic gum and $150 on a kilogram of salep. Nevertheless, he finds making booza worthwhile because it allows him to offer customers a product that reminds him of home.

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Alhour, who grew up in Palestine, says he didn't get a chance to try booza as a child because the treat was too expensive, but he developed an interest in making it when his customers started asking him to add traditional Middle Eastern dishes to his menu. Roast & Toast began as a deli featuring mostly classic American sandwiches but has slowly added Middle Eastern dishes that now include desserts like knafeh and basbousa, a semolina-based cake soaked in syrup. Making booza was a huge learning curve for Alhour, who doesn't have a traditional culinary background.

After graduating with a degree in computer engineering from San Francisco State University, Alhour operated a packaging and shipping business with multiple Bay Area locations, in addition to working as a mechanic at a Brisbane shop. When COVID-19 hit, business at his shipping stores took a massive blow, so he slowly started closing locations one by one. Eventually, a friend in the food industry recommended that he open a restaurant. Soon after, Roast & Toast was born.

Customers line up to order at Roast & Toast Cafe in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Co-owner Masood Abualsoud shows off freshly made booza, a Middle Eastern ice cream, topped with rose petals and phyllo dough, while co-owner Fadi Alhour scoops up cups of booza at Roast & Toast, in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Without many recipes available online, Alhour struggled to get the recipe right. One day, while tinkering with it, a Syrian woman in her 80s stepped into the shop and offered to help Alhour. She told him that she had grown up eating booza from Bakdash, a famous Syrian ice cream parlor that opened inside Al-Hamidiyah Souq in Damascus in 1885, and was very familiar with the taste and texture. So, she stopped by daily for nearly two months until he got the recipe down as she critiqued the flavor and consistency from her memory.

"When we started making the ice cream, we let her try it and asked if it was close to the original one she used to have as a kid. … Once we got the recipe close enough to the one back home, we started noticing a lot of Syrian and Lebanese [customers] coming to the store. They were like, ‘Oh, this one's really good.'"

The nod gave Alhour the validation he sought and encouraged him to create more flavors. Soon, Roast & Toast will feature newer booza flavors, such as could include cookies and cream and one made with amarena cherries. Alhour recently bought the space next door to Roast & Toast; he plans to add additional seating to the existing cafe, too. More Middle Eastern menu items, like baked goods, are also expected to follow.

The exterior of Roast & Toast, which makes booza, a Middle Eastern ice cream, in Berkeley, Calif., on July 8, 2025. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Alhour has been thrilled by the feedback his customers have given him so far and is excited about his business transforming into one with more traditional Middle Eastern options. For now, he's just proud to be one of the few Bay Area spots making the rare Arab treat.

"Making booza became a personal journey to reconnect with something I never had but always felt drawn to. … Seeing people light up when they taste it for the first time … has been the most rewarding part of it all," Alhour said.

Roast & Toast, 1746 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. Open Sunday through Thursday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

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