The talent behind CLASSIC Burger Joint (CBJ), Donald Batal, is a professional entrepreneur with over 18 years of experience in the hospitality sector.
Donald’s visionary and innovative ideas have helped in the establishment and management of several chains not limited to Roadster Diner and Deek Duke. He later joined Boubes Group, the largest F&B firm in Lebanon.
Then in 2009, Donald established the Ministry of Food s.a.l., the company that owns and operates CLASSIC Burger Joint, CAFÉ DIEM and TOMATOMATIC Pizza.
He is a member of Syndicate of Restaurants in Beirut since 2014. Read less

Founder WONDEREIGHT
Brand Marketing Partner

Multidisciplinary creative expert, Walid Nasrala has over 18 years of creative consultancy and branding. He is the founder of WonderEight, one of the region’s most prominent 360 creative agencies for brand and marketing solutions. His extensive experience in the F&B and hospitality industry led him to co-found Ministry of Food s.a.l. which created Classic Burger Joint brand. Read less

Founder WONDEREIGHT
Brand Marketing Partner

Innovation and Marketing expert, Boudy Nasrala founded WonderEight in 1999. With offices in Beirut, Dubai and London, WonderEight serves regional and international clients in all kinds of industries which gave Boudy the insight and know-how to co-found Ministry Of Food s.a.l. and create the brand Classic Burger Joint among as well as 4 other companies and startups like Onlivery app (online food delivery solution)

Boudy is an active board member of the Beirut Creative Cluster. Read less

A Food & Beverage specialist; Concept Creator; Research and Development Specialist within Ministry of Food (Offshore) sal. Chef Ahmad has 40 years of experience.
His many skills include menu creation, food handling, the ability to define ingredients and the knowhow to mix and prepare them to best effect
It goes without saying that Chef Ahmad has been trained to the highest level with regard to food hygiene standards.
Chef Ahmad is actively involved in the planning of the day-to-day back of house operations: specifically kitchen planning, equipment handling and operating systems. He has developed CBJ's methods of casual cooking to merge great taste with simplicity. Ahmad's efforts have developed the CBJ operation so that any changes are easier for his teams to handle. He keeps CBJ up to the minute with regard to technical equipment, and the various other changes that keep the diverse world of F&B constantly evolving.

His attraction to the industry as a whole, and international cuisine more specifically, led him to work on an international tourist cruise ship for two years before stopping at London to work as a chef for the My Kinda Town group. My Kinda Town manages a number of world- renowned restaurants such as Henry J Beans, Chicago Rib Shack, Pizza Pie Factory, Meat Packers, Tex Mex Salsa Restaurant and Lone Star Café.

After a decade of international exposure in London, Paris, and Orlando, Ahmad came back to Lebanon and was part of the grand openings of the famed Hard Rock Café, Planet Hollywood, Henry J Beans, Sports Café and Trader Vic's.

Now part of team behind the success of Classic Burger Joint, Tomatomatic, & Café Diem. Ahmad is on a continuous quest to keep the concepts up to date, refining menus to consumer preferences using his broad knowledge and experience in the industry. Read less

Dynamic F&B professional with 25 years of experience in managing the daily operations of the fast-paced F&B environment in the hotel, restaurant and catering industries. Opening successfully more than 50 restaurants & 4 Hotels in the Middle East & Australia. Effective motivator, trainer and mentor. Dedicated to quality results through continuous improvement. Well-respected leader with a history of motivating teams to peak performance in efficiency and service. Read less

Over 15 years of financial management overseeing and responsible for all financial functions and oversees all revenues, costs, capital expenditures, investments and debt.
Karl have a broad international experience with a variety of business challenges from rapid growth to downsizing, business creation, acquisition & integration, and restructuring in different countries and industries.
Karl is Proficient in cost reductions and efficiencies having a direct impact on EBITDA.
Karl practiced external and internal audit. He also developed and implemented process and procedures for multinational companies.
Karl uses best practices to achieve scale, lean management, efficiency and profitability improvement.
Karl holds a Master in Management with emphasis on Corporate Finance from Ecole de Commerce de Lyon as well as B.Sc. in Economics. Read less

A dynamic operator whose enthusiasm has pushed her away from the major she originally specialized in, Nutrition & Dietetics, into a more lively field, the Field of Food & Beverage. Equipped with a well-rounded education, Angela climbed the executive ladder after holding multiple positions in administration such as, Human Resource Manager, Business Development Manager, and Customer Care Manager. Angela also helped set up the franchise platform for what is now considered a Lebanese Success story, CLASSIC Burger Joint. Angela now holds the position of a Franchise Development Manager for MOF brands, namely CLASSIC Burger Joint & TOMATOMATIC Pizza. Read less

AbdelRahman Habbouchi is an experienced Human Resources and Training leader with almost 15 years of experience in the Hospitality, Automotive and Retail industries and in different countries such as Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar and Nigeria. AbdelRahman previous experience covered multinational companies such as Hyatt International, Rotana Hotels, Intercontinental Hotels, Nissan and Infiniti automotive and Chalhoub Group. AbdelRahman Carries a professional Degree in Human Resources from the American University in Cairo and Global Professional in Human Resources Certificate (GPHR) from Human Resources certification institute (USA).
AbdelRahman is highly proficient in developing and implementing innovative recruitment and retention strategies, researching and implementing human resources systems, developing employee policies and procedures, managing employee relations, developing competency framework, performance management and measurement system, compensation and benefits systems and recognition programs. AbdelRahman has researched, designed and conducted high impact training programs throughout his career. He is certified to provide complex trainings such as train the trainer, leadership and behavioral trainings. Read less

Youssef is a Computer and Communications Engineer with 12 years of experience in the digital field. He started his early career as an enterprise applications developer for a bank while freelancing in web development and building websites for small businesses. He started learning and experimenting in social media as early as 2007 with the rise of Facebook in the region.

He officially joined WonderEight as Chief Technology Officer in May 2014 as Head of the Interactive (new media) Department. His team consists of web designers, web developers, mobile apps and mobile games developers and social media community managers.

His work is his hobby so you’ll find him exploring more technologies on his free time. He gives the word geek a new dimension and we don’t ask Google anymore, we ask Youssef. Read less

Jana has graduated from the American University of Beirut with a Bachelor degree in Food Science and Management and from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom with a Masters degree in Food Technology – Quality Assurance.
She has been with Ministry of Food since 2013 and is currently the Quality Improvement Manager of the company.
She handles all issues related to Food Safety and works closely with the Production and New Product Development Departments to continuously improve and upgrade the overall customer experience in Lebanon and abroad.
She has issued and constantly updates the Policies and Procedures of her department and has considerably collaborated in issuing Classic Burger Joint’s franchise manual. Read less

Karim is an expert in the field of F&B Supply Chain. A graduate of Business Administration with an emphasis in Hotel Management, Karim kick started his career in the hospitality in 1998 working for trendy restaurants in the heart of Down Town Beirut. It is not until 2003 till Karim moved to handle the purchasing function for a prestigious regional catering company that has operations in Lebanon and the GCC. In early 2011, Karim joined Ministry of Food as the group’s Supply Chain Manager and has been ever since. One of Karim’s many achievements in Ministry of Food was to establish a solid supply chain network of approved supplies and suppliers, one of the major contributions to CLASSIC Burger Joint’s expansion success. Read less

Nabil is the Founder and CEO of GWR Consulting, a customer experience and food safety management company.

Educated in the UK and having spent 10 years in the F&B sector, Nabil saw a regional need for specialized consulting services and established GWR in 2005, leading many strategic customer experience initiatives that have had a positive impact on a wide range of business sectors. By engaging and motivating his team, Nabil rapidly expanded GWR services to cover all business sectors and every country in the MENAT region, and expanded to Europe and Singapore in 2014. Read less