WESTLAND — With such little competition in Westland, it would have been easy for Al-Nor Restaurant to skimp on the quality of its ingredients.

But when the restaurant opened on February 10th, 2008, it did so with one goal in mind: to offer up Middle Eastern fare similar to the La Shish restaurant down the road but do everything bigger and better, with more flavor and bigger portions.

While the popular La Shish chain has closed its doors for good and its Westland location has shut down, Al-Nor Restaurant remains, and judging by the reactions of customers, the quality is good enough to stand on its own.

“Customers give us nice comments all the time,” said manager Summer Ahmed.”We haven’t gotten one complaint from a customer yet. They tell us we’re way better than other Arabic restaurants in the area.”

Many Arabic food connoisseurs have always known that the smaller family-owned Arabic restaurants dish out bigger portions for better prices than the popular La Shish chain, but until Al-Nor opened, Westland residents didn’t have many other options and in a lot of cases, La Shish was all they had known. But since Al-Nor opened, business has picked up steadily as customers from nearby Westland Mall and other stores like Best Buy have begun to file in for lunches and Saturday night dinners, both times during which the restaurant gets crowded.

Customers keep coming back for the pleasant family atmosphere and the clean, comfortable dining room that features two large plasma TVs, vibrant decorations and comfortable booths.

“We are family owned and run, and customers like the special treatment that comes from people who care about the restaurant,” said Ahmed.

Customer service is of the utmost importance to the staff at Al-Nor, but the flavor and quality of the food is just as big. Al-Nor receives fresh ingredients daily from Dearborn, including some that other places are afraid to include in their recipes.

“We use spices that even Dearborn places don’t use,” said Ahmed. “Other places back off of the stronger spices like curry and use more of other things like lemon pepper and olive oil.”

Many of those places use less of the stronger spices because they’re afraid of scaring off the casual customer or the person who hasn’t tried Arabic food before, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Al-Nor thus far.

Waitress Melissa Clemons hadn’t tried much Arabic food at all before working at Al-Nor but now she can’t get enough of it.

“Every day the cook will make me something new and it’s always amazing,” she said. “The food here is better than any other place I’ve tried.”

Clemons also enjoys working at Al-Nor because of how nice the customers are and how cozy and family-friendly the atmosphere has become.

Al-Nor has the menu to cater to any family member’s tastes, with dishes ranging from traditional favorites like chicken schawarma (the top seller) and other meat kabobs and sandwiches to a large vegetarian menu including grape leaves, falafel, hummus, and baba ghanouj. Customers may find that each dish has a special twist they won’t find at similar restaurants, as most of them are family recipes that have been handed down through generations. Many of them come back over and over again so they can “try everything on the menu,” said Ahmed.

The fresh-squeezed juice menu is popular as well with fruits and vegetables like apples, mangoes, guava, and carrots among the choices blended with other items like milk and honey, and Al-Nor plans to add additional choices in the near future to its menu. The bakery section offers selections from the popular Masri Sweets company.

Delivery is also available for a cost of $2.00 with a $15.00 minimum by calling 734.367.7525, which is a service that many similar restaurants don’t offer.

But those who do come in for a casual lunch or dinner won’t be disappointed. The building used to house another restaurant called Beirut Nights, but the interior underwent three months of remodeling in order to get ready for the transition to Al-Nor.

“A lot of hard work was put into this place,” said Ahmed. “We took a lot of time and money to remodel the interior from the walls to the booths.”

“People that walk in say things like ‘Oh my god, what did you do to the place? It’s so nice.'”