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Late-night Comfort Food
Two Fellas’ tasty creations a hit with students and others Adam Rayes
Brian Powers
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oland Saleh credits delicious, self-made concoctions as part of the inspiration for the comfort food served at Two Fellas Grill. “Like everyone, when we were younger, I’d go to Burger King and get a hamburger,” he says. “And what would I do with my hamburger? I’d ask for ranch and barbecue on the side, and then I’d put my fries in the burger and dip it in the sauce.” Saleh, 38, and his best friend, Tim Torres, 39, are the co-owners and founders of Two Fellas Grill, at 907 Howard St., just off of Western Michigan University’s main campus. The restaurant specializes in grilled tortilla wraps.
Saleh and Torres, both area natives, graduated from Gull Lake High School and Michigan State, where Saleh got a degree in marketing and Torres in communications. Though they didn’t study for it, they say they don’t think starting the business was particularly difficult. “What we do, and what we have tried to do from day one, is make things as simple as possible,” Torres says. This simplicity can be found in the restaurant’s food creation, service, business model and even advertising, which is based almost entirely on word-of-mouth and social
Owners Roland Saleh, left, and Tim Torres, right, opened Two Fellas Grill in 2013.
media. The same goes for the genesis of the restaurant as well: Both owners had grown tired of working for someone else (Torres worked for Best Buy as a regional manager, and Saleh did marketing for Jimmy John’s), and when Torres called Saleh and asked if he wanted to open a restaurant, the two decided to dive right in. “It was really that simple,” Torres says, laughing. “It sounds kind of crazy to make such a life-changing decision like that, but it was really that simple.”
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