YOUSSEF IBRAHIM, the fledgling Lebanese fast-food entrepreneur, believes his latest project has global potential. It's his Buns & Guns Military Restaurant (tagline: "a sandwich can kill you") and looks more like something from the set of Platoon than the purveyor of Beirut's tastiest cheese-steak sandwiches and burgers.
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Staff are dressed in army fatigues and battle helmets, and machinegun replicas, grenades and bullets adorn the walls.
Given added ambience by a rolling soundtrack of army helicopters, gunfire and explosives being detonated, Buns & Guns is proving quite a hit with locals.
In the heart of Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs - pounded during the 2006 war with Israel - Ibrahim says Buns & Guns is an ironic attempt to make the most of what the neighbourhood has to offer.
"When you live by the beach, people make cafes that reflect that beach atmosphere," he said this week. "So when you live in a war zone, I think you should make the most of that, too."
With a waist-high wall of sandbags protecting diners from the chaotic traffic, and camouflage netting above to block out the sun, Buns & Guns is as comfortable as any McDonald's restaurant.
Not that its menu would appeal to that bastion of wholesome fun. Shaped like a large-calibre bullet, it unfolds to reveal a list of unusual dishes including a toasted lamb sandwich called an M16 Carbine.
Grilled chicken sandwiches are named after the Magnum 357 and the Canon 155 howitzer, and the AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle is a steak sandwich served in a toasted baguette with lashings of mustard mayonnaise.
The restaurant has two choices for a money-saving meal-deal combo: the Tactical Meal and the Terrorist Meal.
Since it opened a month ago, Buns & Guns has become a regular stop on Jafar Hassan's way home from work: "I like the food, and I think the decorations are funny. They do home delivery, too," the 23-year-old said.
Mr Ibrahim said he got the idea after his coffee shop was destroyed in the 2006 war. "Life is not all serious. People say we're all terrorists here so … now we make terrorist sandwiches.
"But seriously, all the language you are picking up on … that is all in English, so I don't think many people would really pick up on a lot of this."
Careful to avoid using the names of weapons associated with Hezbollah, he said no one had raised any objections. Buoyed by several franchise offers, he says he would like to try at least one other store first. "Maybe we take it to West Beirut next."
