La Shish's rise and fall (1988–2007)
Talal Chahine opened La Shish in Dearborn in the late 1980s and built it into a beloved regional chain of more than a dozen Middle Eastern restaurants. In 2006 federal prosecutors indicted him for tax evasion and skimming cash; the chain went bankrupt and its locations shuttered.
Chahine fled to Lebanon and was later convicted in absentia; the chain's assets were auctioned off.
A cautionary tale that a restaurant's popularity does not protect it from financial and legal collapse.
It is the context for any new Detroit-area Middle Eastern restaurant: the sector breeds beloved names, but a license is only the first step on a long road.
