Beef Shawarma Wraps at a 1975 Coconut Grove Market: Original Daily Bread Marketplace

The Original Daily Bread Marketplace, at 2400 SW 27th Street in Coconut Grove, slices its beef shawarma off a vertical rotisserie and rolls it into a $13.99 wrap at a counter that sits inside a working Middle Eastern grocery. The Mazzawi family has been cooking here since 1975, which makes this one of the longest-running places in Miami to get shawarma, and the shelves of olives, cheeses and spices around you are part of the visit.

The restaurant's own history is short and plain: the Mazzawi family has owned and run the Original Daily Bread Marketplace for more than forty years, and has been serving Middle Eastern food from this spot since 1975. That is long enough that several generations of Grove residents grew up eating the same kafta and baklava, and the family name, not a marketing concept, is what holds the place together.

The layout explains the name. You can eat and shop in one stop. At the food counter you order soups, salads, sandwiches and combination platters, at the dessert counter you find baklava and other pastries, and the aisles carry Middle Eastern and Greek specialties such as cheeses, olives, olive oils, nuts, dried fruit and spices. It feels less like a restaurant with a retail corner and more like a neighborhood market that happens to feed people lunch.

Daily Bread's shawarma is beef, marinated and roasted on a vertical rotisserie, then shaved thin. The simplest order is the Beef Shawarma Wrap at $13.99, and it is the one to get first. If you want a proper sit-down meal, the Beef Shawarma Platter is $16.50 and comes with three sides chosen from hummus, baba ganoush, house salad, pickled cabbage, tabouli and rice pilaf.

Two other formats are useful. The Shawarma Rice Bowl costs $14.50 and is the easiest thing to eat from a car or a park bench. The Beef Shawarma Salad, at $15.99, sets the meat on lettuce with tomatoes, pickled cabbage, cucumbers and sweet peppers. My honest pick for a first visit is the platter, because choosing hummus, tabouli and pickled cabbage as the three sides shows off what the kitchen does well beyond the meat.

The most indulgent item on the menu is Shawarma Fries for $14.99: freshly cut fries buried under shawarma, crumbled feta, garlic aioli and harissa aioli. It is heavy, so treat it as something to split. For a lighter or meat-free order, the falafel wrap is $8.99, one of the cheapest full lunches in Coconut Grove, and the gyro wrap is $11.99 if someone in your group prefers that style.

Leave room for the dessert counter. Pistachio baklava is $2.25 a piece, cheap enough to buy a few for later, and the case usually holds several kinds of filo pastry. Before you leave, the nuts, dried fruit and spices on the market shelves make an easy edible souvenir to carry home after the meal. If you are feeding a group at home, the catering menu sells beef shawarma by weight at $24 a pound.

Ordering is straightforward. Walk up to the food counter, pick a wrap, platter or bowl, and choose your sides from the trays in front of you. You can eat in or take the food with you. If you plan to shop as well, eat first and browse afterward, because the market aisles are easier to wander with your hands free and you will know which spreads you liked enough to take home.

The family also takes online orders through its Toast page for pickup, which helps on busy weekday lunch hours when the counter line builds. The market has been advertising for new counter staff, a sign the lunch trade is steady. If you like heat, the harissa aioli used on the shawarma fries is the spiciest thing on the menu, and the garlic aioli is the cooling counterpart.

The store hours listed on the official website are Monday through Saturday 9 am to 8 pm and Sunday 11 am to 5 pm. Late morning on a weekday is the calmest time, when the rotisserie is fully loaded and the salad trays are fresh. Saturday lunch draws the most shoppers, and Sunday has the shortest day, so plan around the earlier close if you are coming after church or a Grove brunch.

Online ordering runs on a shorter schedule than the store, so if you want to order ahead, place it well before closing. Walking in is always an option during store hours, and the counter turns orders around quickly enough that most people do not bother ordering ahead unless they are collecting for a group.

The market is on SW 27th Street at Calusa Street, in the residential part of Coconut Grove west of the bayfront. The Coconut Grove Metrorail station on SW 27th Avenue is the closest rail stop, and from there it is a short walk or bike ride down the avenue toward the market. On a hot afternoon a short drive or rideshare is the more comfortable option, especially if you plan to carry groceries home.

After eating, head toward the bay. The center of the Grove and its waterfront parks are a short drive or a longer walk east along tree-shaded residential streets, and a bayfront lawn is a good place to sit with a box of baklava. If you are using the Metrorail, the ride back toward Brickell and downtown takes only a few stops.

Address: The Original Daily Bread Marketplace, 2400 SW 27th Street, Miami, FL 33133, in Coconut Grove. Store hours: Monday to Saturday 9 am to 8 pm, Sunday 11 am to 5 pm. The beef shawarma wrap is $13.99, the platter with three sides is $16.50, and falafel wraps are $8.99. A separate Daily Bread operates in Pinecrest, and this article covers only the original Coconut Grove market on SW 27th Street.