For Rachel Firestone Mohammad, when it comes to love, you just know.
That was her outlook when she met her future husband, Samir Mohammad, on Tinder seven years ago.
Now, the couple not only share their lives but also their workdays. The Mohammads – who married in June 2020 — opened 9th Street Bistro, 56 S. 9th St., in September 2021.
Samir has been cooking since he was 13. Rachel hadn’t been in the restaurant business before meeting Samir. She was an account manager at a software company in Colorado. But meeting Samir changed her career path.
The couple met on Tinder in 2015. For their first date, Samir took Rachel to a bar called Vesta in Denver.
“I took her there to style her out because I knew everybody who worked there,” Samir said. “The chef kept sending out dishes.”
Shortly after, they fell in love.
“When you know, you know,” Rachel said.
At the time, Samir was an executive chef at the History Colorado Center. They dated for a year before Samir had an opportunity to open a restaurant in Breckenridge, Colo., with a few partners. Rachel began working with him in the restaurant. After parting ways with the other co-owners, Samir opened a new restaurant to run with Rachel in Colorado before deciding to move to Indiana.
“We realized we liked working together,” Rachel said.
“We complemented each other,” Samir said.
Rachel said the couple wanted to move to Indiana to be closer to Rachel’s family and to be closer to farmland with a better growing season.
“We liked the idea of Indiana, and we started looking at spaces (for a restaurant),” Rachel said. “We didn’t want downtown Indianapolis. We didn’t want to be trendy or on Mass Ave or in Fountain Square.”
“We liked being off the beaten path,” Samir said.
In November 2019, the Mohammads checked out a little bistro space on 9th Street. They fell in love with its exposed brick and original floors, so they moved to the area Jan. 1, 2020. They planned to open the second weekend of April, but the COVID-19 pandemic changed their plans.
A month later, the couple held off on opening the restaurant and instead launched Sunday Supper Club, an order service where the Mohammads prepare ready-to-heat meals for pick-up on Sunday.
“It’s a lot easier to reopen as an established restaurant (with the COVIID-19 restrictions), but not as much as a new restaurant,” Samir said.
The couple opened the Sunday Supper Club on May 1, 2020, and still operate it today. The restaurant finally opened for dine in on Sept. 9, 2021.
As working together, the couple is still going strong.
For Samir, the biggest challenge of working with Rachel is spending all his time with her.
“For the most part, we do see eye-to-eye,” Samir said. “One thing we agree upon in our business is that neither one of us is the boss. Our business, the bistro, is the sole owner of the restaurant and all decisions get made for what’s best for the bistro, not what’s best for the individual or us as owners or a couple.”
Samir said the best part of working with Rachel is watching her grow.
Rachel said her biggest challenge is not taking Samir’s disappointments seriously. She said the best thing is knowing that they both want the restaurant to succeed and never doubting his passion or commitment.
9th Street Bistro is open at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, with the last seating at 9:30 p.m. Reservations are strongly recommended and can be made at 9thstbistro.com/dine. The restaurant can seat 35 people and the menu changes every one to two months. It also has weekly specials.
Meet Samir Mohammad and Rachel Firestone Mohammad
Ages:
Samir: 37
Rachel: 34
Do you cook at home?
Yes, but they also like to explore other restaurants.
Favorite restaurants:
Futuro, Ali’i Poke, Kobayashi Sushi and Asian Kitchen, Bonge’s Tavern
Hobbies outside of work:
Traveling, gardening, going to music shows, growing their own food
Favorite bistro meal:
Samir: Anything with curry
Rachel: The burrata. “It’s one dish we make together,” Rachel said. “We start with fresh mozzarella curd and put that in very hot, almost boiling water with some salt. Samir stretches it to develop the texture and then pinches off a ball, spread thin and put filling of house-made creamy ricotta and wrap (the mozzarella) around it and it goes into an ice bath. He does the hot water and stretching, and I do the filling and finishing.”
