After immigrating to Canada from Cairo in the 1980s, Emad Yacoub went from earning $4 an hour squeezing oranges to becoming one of Toronto’s youngest executive chefs. After opening his first restaurants in Toronto in the ‘90s, he moved to Vancouver to conquer the food scene there as a bonafide restaurateur, creating the growing Glowbal Restaurant Group, which currently manages eight different brands. Last year, he opened his first restaurant in Toronto since achieving success out west. We spoke to Yacoub about what’s driven his success, the challenges he’s overcome, and how having coffee with the neighbourhood milk lady as a child shaped his restaurant philosophy.

I immigrated to Toronto from Cairo in 1984. I was 19 years old with no knowledge of the English language and a lot of worry about what the future held. The first few months were incredibly hard and the language barrier made it difficult to make friends. I eventually found a job squeezing oranges at the Harbour Castle Hilton in downtown Toronto, but I was terrified of getting fired. I felt that if my boss had to let someone go, and it was a choice between myself and a Canadian or European chef, I would be the one to go because of my language barrier. 

That fear fueled an intense work ethic. I put a clock on the wall and started timing how long it took me to squeeze  the oranges we needed for the day, trying to beat my own record. I became obsessed, working faster and faster, bewildering the head chef in the process. It took the person who had the job before me around six hours—I whittled it down to one. 

My dedication paid off when a big cooking competition came up. Our executive chef and 15 cooks were no longer in the kitchen that day since they were competing, leaving a skeleton crew at the hotel. When the breakfast cook called in sick, the sous chef panicked. I told him I could handle it. I ended up serving around 400 breakfasts by myself that day and impressed the room service manager so much that they made me the new weekend breakfast cook—the busiest shift available.

From there, I rose through the ranks and became the youngest executive chef at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto at 26. I ran the fine dining and catering operations and worked alongside some of the top chefs in the world. But I still wanted more. 

That’s what led me to Vancouver in 1997, where I took an executive chef job at a restaurant called Joe Forte’s. At the time, the food quality was subpar, but the place was packed with celebrities and was busy all the time. I realized that running a successful restaurant was about more than just great cooking. It requires strong business acumen. Fortunately, I had studied accounting at Cairo University before I moved to Toronto, so I had some knowledge there—I just hadn’t seen it applied in a restaurant environment. After a few years at Joe’s learning all I could, it was time to venture out on my own and put my cooking and financial skills together. 

In 1999, I went back to Toronto and teamed up with some family members to open my own café on Yonge Street, called Brownstone Bistro, using the little money I had. The first day, I hardly made a sale, but on day two, I came in early to bake delicious-smelling muffins and croissants. I set up a table on the street, offering passers-by free coffee, but I left the milk and sugar inside to get people through the doors. Slowly but surely, sales picked up, and we became the busiest café in the area within four months. Within six months, we were able to recoup the purchase price. 

I used the money I made from the café to open more brands, starting with a higher-end restaurant next door called Solo on Yonge. In 2001, I moved back to Vancouver to open more restaurants under the banner of Glowbal Restaurant Group. The group has since grown to eight locations on the west coast—Glowbal, Coast, The Roof, and others—and manages about 1,500 employees. I have some incredible long-term partners who’ve helped me open these locations, and many of our staff have been with us for more than 15 years—a milestone I like to commemorate by gifting them a nice watch. In 2023, I did what I’ve wanted to do for a long time: Open another restaurant back in Toronto, which is a new outpost for one of my Vancouver restaurants, Black + Blue.

Through it all, my guiding star has been to treat every customer like a guest in my own home. I don’t care if they’re ordering a $4 special or a $1,000 bottle of wine—they all deserve the same level of care and attention. It all goes back to how I was brought up: In my second floor walk-up in Cairo, everyone from the milk lady to powerful Egyptian officials, who knew my father from his work in the government, knew they were welcome to come in for coffee and a chat. 

Looking back on my journey, from that scared 19-year-old immigrant to the owner of a thriving restaurant group, I’m amazed at how far I’ve come. But I genuinely wouldn’t be here without the partners who have been by my side for two decades, and the loyal employees who helped build this business. This is their story as much as it is mine.