(mellow music) - What comments have you heard from folks who maybe are trying their first Middle Eastern dishes about surprise or what stood out to them?

- I mean, we get a lot of 'em, you know, one of my favorite comments of somebody who was very off base, but enjoyed it nonetheless, said he didn't really know Indian food very well, but this was the best Indian food he ever had.

- Oh, no.

(Elizabeth laughing) Which was a compliment, so.. - Right.

- We don't expect people to come in, know the cuisine.

A lot of times we'll see people like secretly trying to Google things on their phone, 'cause they don't understand the terms and we don't expect them to.

You know, a lot of the food is relatable.

We have a fatayer on the menu that is, it's kind of like a calzone, it's a stuffed bread, but the name kind of throws people off at first.

Or, you know, there's just different things like that that, you know, it's just food that's delicious and warm, spiced, and it's comfort food, for sure.

- You know, one of the misconceptions is that it is a very monolithic cuisine, that it's just, you know, hummus and bread and kebabs and rice, but it's not, there's a lot of variety to it, and there's a lot of, you know, nuance in the food.

It's very, very detailed and can vary so much, depending on where it's coming from in the Middle East.

You're gonna come in and find something that you probably haven't had before and you'll be very pleasantly surprised by it.

- So you mentioned Middle Eastern cuisine, obviously that's the focus here.

Hrant, would you tell us a little bit about your background and cultural heritage?

- Yeah, so my dad's side of the family is Armenian, from Lebanon.

You know, my mom was from east Tennessee and they met in college and moved overseas and had family and, you know, sister and I over there.

So there was a lot of this influence of different cuisine.

You know, Armenian, Turkish, Lebanese, Syria, and all just kind of in our house.

And then my mother, who, you know, from east Tennessee, had never seen this before, like really fell in love with it.

And so when we would, you know, make meals at home, that would be the food that we would cook.

- When folks come into either Lyra or a Vega Shawarma, what are your hopes?

What do you hope that they leave with?

- Full belly and a smile.

- A full belly.

- Yeah.

- [Elizabeth] Yeah.

- [Hrant] Can't ask for much more than that.

- [Elizabeth] Yeah.

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