Photo by Kelli S. Hewett.
Ahmed Smadi opened Levant Mediterranean Fusion in August 2025 in the parking lot of the Beechnut Street Shell station in Trussville.
Ahmed Smadi has crammed a lot of life into his 27 years.
At barely 7, he teetered on a plastic milk crate to run the cash register at his family’s multifaceted convenience store and restaurants. By middle school he was hustling Monster Energy drinks from his locker and rolling his $1,000 profits into the stock market.
At 19, he opened the Thai-inspired Roll Up ice cream shop that thrived for nearly three years until the pandemic. He has also dabbled in modeling and earned a part in the 2024 independent film “Saffron Kingdom.”
Smadi’s latest entrepreneurial venture, Levant Mediterranean Fusion, is a red food truck in the parking lot of the Beechnut Street Shell gas station in Trussville, just off U.S. 11.
He speaks of the journey like someone who has been in business, well, since kindergarten.
“I’ve fallen on my face a couple times,” Smadi said. “I’ve opened businesses and closed already. I’ve lost money that some people will never make. I’ve learned that sometimes you gotta have patience, step back. A lot of people give up. But it’s a guaranteed no if you stop.”
In recent months, though, he has grown the business and hired two employees.
“Trussville has the most amazing love and respect,” Smadi said. “They’re all about small business.”
JORDANIAN FAMILY INFLUENCE
Smadi carefully crafted and curated the entire Levant menu, earning him high marks from online reviewers and a steady stream of regular customers.
“You can just taste the love,” Smadi said. “You can taste the feeling of someone really cared about making this. I tell people, ‘I hope you enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed making it.’”
There are favorites like chicken and yellow rice platters, gyros and Mediterranean street tacos — all with twists on exotic flavors and seasonings. The white sauce has a touch of New York street-cart culture. Inspiration also comes in the form of seasonings, from Spanish to Caribbean to Puerto Rican, down to Smadi’s family’s Jordanian roots.
“There was always a big fat meal waiting at home with a bunch of different flavors,” Smadi said. ”I didn’t realize how amazing they were until I tried to make them.”
The tahini at Levant even comes from Smadi’s mom, who makes it in Vestavia Hills and drives it over herself.
POST-COLLEGE JOB SEARCH
Smadi’s food truck business was born after he earned his business degree from UAB. Smadi bought the trailer from a restaurant in Snead, Alabama, then spent months cleaning, fixing, chasing licenses and doing almost everything to launch.
His buddy agreed to let him set up shop with Levant in the Beechnut Street Shell parking lot, and Levant formally opened in August of 2025.
He named it for The Levant region in the Middle East, a vibrant, diverse area including Jordan, sometimes called the “cradle of civilization.”
BUSINESS FROM BIRTH
Smadi talks about entrepreneurship like math: law of averages, shots on goal, a million ways to make a million dollars.
“In a weird way, I never thought anything was really out of reach,” Smadi said. “Everything was a recipe. One plus one is two. If you see corruption with something, move on, find something else unless you’re ready to fight that battle.”
By 13, Smadi had developed a very grown-up concern.
“I’d be walking around the register, like, how can I get five gas stations? No one’s gonna marry me if I don’t have five gas stations,” he said with a laugh.
REVIVING HOSPITALITY
Photo by Kelli S. Hewett.
A chicken platter from Levant Mediterranean Fusion, featuring seasoning influences from Smadi’s Jordanian family roots.
Equally important, Smadi says, is practicing hospitality, reading people’s moods and appetites and finding small ways to make them feel seen.
That easy, confident presence was refined over two decades of waiting on his dad’s customers, particularly those at the liquor store.
Now, Smadi works the window of his tiny food truck, where he treats each interaction like part of the meal: intentional, personal and hard to forget.
“You just start talking, conversating to people, you just learn how to approach people,” Smadi said. “I enjoy that customer-cashier-employee relationship. I think it’s actually important.”
The menu at Levant reflects that upbringing but bends toward the people who pull off Main Street in work trucks and sedans.
For all the flavor talk, Smadi is just as intent on the experience for the people who frequent his truck — many of them working people grabbing a quick lunch between shifts.
“We’re kind of bringing back that good customer service that people don’t get anymore,” Smadi said.
Customer Jake Stockton has been visiting Levant since it opened last summer and appreciates the hard work Smadi and the team put into their food and service.
“It’s absolutely amazing — best food I have, hands down,” Stockton said. “It’s got flavor in it. I don’t know anybody here that makes food like that.”
Smadi is proud of the five-star ratings and the regulars who honk and wave even when they don’t stop to eat.
“I would take every customer’s order, make every customer’s order, open, close, clean up, run to the city for licenses, run to the grocery store or Restaurant Depot,” Smadi said. “I was in a box 10, almost 12 hours a day. There’s a lot of thinking into that.”
What came out of that “hot metal box” of a food truck was more than the menu.
He talks now about efficiency, systems, scaling and letting go of that “do-it-yourself mentality” if he wants to grow beyond a single truck.
Smadi also talks about patience, a virtue he says he earned the hard way — through business failures, a real estate deal stuck in legal limbo and nights spent staring at the ceiling at three in the morning.
He encourages others to think about their dreams and dedicate the work to make them happen.
“If you showed up seven days a week, 365 days a year, something’s going to move one step closer,” Smadi continued. “You just have to do it.”
For more on Ahmed Smadi’s Levant Mediterranean Fusion food truck, visit levantbham.com.
