Furn Beaino: The Extraordinary Lahm Baajin Specialist in Jounieh
Toni Beaino is passionate about what he does. Six days a
week, he wakes up at 3:30—even earlier than the crack of dawn—to start
preparing dough and carving out meat. Fresh premium produce is sourced and
delivered daily from a large market in Nahr Ibrahim. A couple lambs are
slaughtered and tested for conformity to strict standards before being brought
in to be trimmed and ground.
Beaino owns and operates a bakery renowned for its lahm baajin, a Lebanese pizza spread
thin with a blend of ground lamb meat, onions, tomatoes and spices. It’s not
Furn Beaino’s only specialty, but it’s one of the major reasons why folks from
across the country trek vast distances to visit the bakery. A crispy, ethereally paper-thin
flatbread serves as a vehicle to transport that peppery, lemony meat mix into
your mouth cleanly without taking away from the main attraction. And one is
never enough.
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| A premium blend of minced lamb, onions, tomatoes and spices atop a crisp, wafer-like dough |
40 years ago, Beaino opened a small bakery in the Old
Souks of Jounieh. At the young age of 20, he was eager to launch his own business—something
for himself, no matter how modest. Channeling every ounce of passion, hard
work, and commitment into the end product, Beaino refused to budge on quality
and consistency.
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| Toni Beaino, founder and owner of Furn Beaino |
In the span of five years, he relocated the bakery to a
larger outlet in Sarba just meters from where it stands today. Business
continued to flourish, and a decade later, in 1990, Beaino permanently
resettled to its current bastion along the inner Sarba highway. As you pull off
the Jounieh straightaway not far beyond Kababji, you spot a collection of
double- and triple-parked cars past a gas station precisely where the road
forks. That cluster of cars confirms you’ve arrived to Furn Beaino.
Inside, the bakery bustles with more than half a dozen
workers kneading dough, tending to the oven, and wrapping up orders swifter
than the eye can follow. One of Beaino’s sons, Samer, doubles as cashier and
runner while simultaneously welcoming every guest passing through the door.
His brother Wissam also pitches in, splitting time between the Furn and his
full-time teaching position at Notre Dame University. Both in their late 20s,
Samer and Wissam have been assisting their father since they were adolescents.
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| The bakery in full swing |
Besides lahm baajin, the bakery produces manakish with the
mainstay thyme-sesame mix—zaatar—in addition to cheese, chanklish, soujouk,
kafta, kawarma, and every possible combination thereof. The giant spinach
turnovers shaped like triangles are also on the roll call.
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| Spinach turnovers and meat pies cooling down after being plucked from the oven |
Furn Beaino is huge on cleanliness, and earlier this year,
they were awarded the “Food Hygiene Inspection and Training Award” from GWR, a
local consultancy spearheading quality control throughout the Levant. A
stringent food safety policy means that the Furn runs daily internal inspections and receives a monthly visit from a GWR auditor adhering to international best
practices. Besides this, employees don gloves and constantly wipe down work surfaces. The kitchen is free of clutter, and the whole operation ticks like
clockwork.
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| Hundreds of balls of an exclusive dough recipe pass through a dough press |
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| Tending to the oven |
Beaino has no immediate plans to open additional outlets,
but a central kitchen is on the horizon, which would pave the way for a
potential network of bakeries sharing uniform standards in quality.
Until then, guests can take advantage of the Furn’s very
accommodating schedule from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Sunday
is reserved for family, faith and, of course, recuperation. And no one deserves
it more than Beaino, whose calm demeanor and winsome smile have kept him going—and
have kept people returning—four long decades later.
Furn Beaino
+961 9 910 306
Instagram: @furnbeaino
Note that the bakery
does not take delivery orders.
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