Chef Marisol Borrego was born in Bogotá. She worked alongside Shahin Afsharian for several years, including at the JW Marriott in Savannah, and one day she brought him an arepa she had made at home. "She was like, here, I made you an arepa," Afsharian, now chief operating officer of Big Bon Hospitality, told Eat It & Like It. He called it "a delicious product that I haven't seen in Savannah at all."
That arepa is now the anchor of Maizal, a Colombian café at 2018 Habersham Street at East 37th Street, on the edge of the Starland District. Big Bon Hospitality held the ribbon cutting on Thursday, Nov. 5, and set the soft opening to begin Monday, Nov. 9. The new address changes when the food is available. For a while, getting Mari's arepas meant catching the stand at the Saturday market in Forsyth Park. At Habersham Street, the public side of the place is built around mornings and lunch. The after-hours side needed City Council's approval.
From a Pop-Up to a Saturday Stand to a Street Address
The concept took nearly three years to reach a permanent home, according to WJCL. The steps, in order:
- A ghost kitchen pop-up. Big Bon Hospitality used its Ghost Kitchen platform to put Colombian arepas in front of customers through pop-up events. Those events sold out. "Everything started because we did a ghost kitchen," Mari told Eat It & Like It.
- A farmers market stand. Mari and her husband started selling at local farmers markets, and Big Bon supplied kitchen space and equipment. The Savannah Morning News listed Maizal Arepas among nine new vendors joining the Forsyth Farmers' Market Saturday market in January 2025.
- Pop-ups up the coast. The arepas also appeared at small pop-ups in Charleston and on Hilton Head Island.
- A café and venue. The latest step is Maizal at Habersham and 37th, in a building Eat It & Like It calls The 912.
Afsharian told Eat It & Like It that the project was never meant to be a full partnership. Big Bon's role was to let Mari "launch her own thing" on the Big Bon platform, which he described as "part of our mission in the brand, to create entrepreneurship." Big Bon gave her kitchen space and helped with permitting. He said the same thing to WJCL: "Our core value and backbone is to serve and to create entrepreneurship with the people that we love and the community that we love."
Each step brought the food closer to the neighborhood and onto a more regular schedule. The pop-ups sold out quickly, and the market stand kept Saturday hours. The café runs on a daily clock.
A Café by Day, a Permitted Venue After Hours
Eat It & Like It reported Maizal's hours as 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and suggested readers bring a laptop and stay a while. After 2:30, the same room becomes a venue for rehearsal parties, cocktails and DJs. Afsharian said the team had studied what this part of central Savannah near Starland was missing, and smaller event spaces were high on that list.
The split shows up in the city's paperwork. Item 15 on Savannah City Council's Oct. 8, 2026 agenda asked for a special-use permit for a hall, banquet or reception use at 2018 Habersham Street, Unit C-1. The agenda notes that a daytime coffee shop is allowed there by right. The after-hours private events are what needed the permit. A separate request, item 16, covered alcohol consumed on the premises at catered private events. Its conditions limit alcohol service to private catered events in the approved venue and require an Alcohol Beverage License.
Council approved both items by 7-2 votes, according to the draft minutes of the Oct. 8 meeting.
The part of Maizal that's open to the public is a coffee-and-arepa counter that runs from early morning through lunch. The cocktails and DJs belong to private events booked after the café closes. WJCL describes the space the same way, as a daytime café that plans to host private gatherings, celebrations and community events outside regular hours.
Nearby Starland spots keep a later schedule. The Leopold's shop in Starland is built around evenings, with ice cream after 9 p.m. on weeknights. Maizal starts serving when the neighborhood wakes up and is done by mid-afternoon.
What the Counter Serves Before 2:30
The whole menu is gluten-free. Afsharian told WJCL that Maizal is expected to be Savannah's first fully gluten-free Colombian café. The business says its recipes avoid seed oils, use non-GMO ingredients and use dairy products without added hormones. "We wanted to make it healthy too, apart from just gluten free," Afsharian told WJCL.
Afsharian described the menu to Eat It & Like It as "small, strong, not overly complicated." Here's what the two outlets reported will be on it:
- Arepas. Mari calls them a traditional Colombian meal, a white corn bread topped with scrambled eggs, shredded beef or cheese. The simplest one is mozzarella and butter. Afsharian's own favorite has shredded beef, crema, crumbled cheese, butter and mozzarella.
- Empanadas, including a guava-and-cheese version.
- Cassava waffles with dulce de leche and membrillo.
- Bowls such as the bandeja paisa, plus chicharrones, the crispy pork belly Mari made when she worked at the JW Marriott.
- Sweets, including a gluten-free tres leches cake and handmade pastries.
- Coffee from single-origin Colombian beans, including a Café Campesino made with cinnamon, cloves and panela, an unrefined brown sugar. Eat It & Like It also flagged a coconut Cocada Latte as a likely favorite. WJCL adds smoothies and specialty drinks.
Much of this list works best at breakfast. Coffee spiced with cinnamon and cloves, waffles with dulce de leche, and arepas topped with scrambled eggs all fit a café that opens at 7:30.
The Room Was Designed for Staying
Most of the design details point to people sitting down and staying for a while. Afsharian told Eat It & Like It the look is organic, with curvy lines and neutral colors, aiming for "a traditional Latin venue where you can feel at home, but with a modern twist."
The kitchen is all electric, with no gas and no volatile grease, and it's in full view. "You're gonna be able to see everything that's moving in there," Afsharian said. The middle of the room looks like a small stage, with the barista and kitchen on it. On the corner, a patio has a fireplace that Mari picked out. A fountain and string lights may come later.
A fireplace on the patio of a daytime café in November means a 7:30 a.m. coffee outside. That's an easy way to try Maizal during the first weeks of the soft opening.
Two Big Bons, One Landlord, Separate Corners
Maizal's nearest relative is Big Bon Bodega at 2011 Bull Street, the bagel shop from the team that started with Big Bon Pizza, a pizza-on-wheels operation for events, in 2016. Eat It & Like It reports that the Habersham building has the same landlord as Big Bon. Afsharian explained why the new corner didn't become another Big Bon: "A Big Bon that close to the other Big Bon didn't make any sense."
So the two shops are part of the same hospitality family and sit a short walk apart, but they serve different food. One morning you might get a bagel on Bull Street, another an arepa on Habersham. For anyone in Starland who eats gluten-free, Maizal gives the neighborhood a breakfast counter where nothing on the menu has to be ruled out.
Afsharian has watched this area change. He moved to Savannah eight or nine years ago, around the time Big Bon started, and he told Eat It & Like It the area "has really transformed," with streets "full of people almost all the way up to Victory." Most of the earlier growth happened on Bull Street, which we covered in our look at what's opened in the Starland District. Maizal brings a daytime spot to Habersham.
Before You Go
- Where: 2018 Habersham Street, Savannah, GA 31401, at Habersham and East 37th.
- When: Soft opening set to begin Monday, Nov. 9. Eat It & Like It reported hours of 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
- Updates: Maizal posts menu information and opening announcements on Instagram at @maizalarepasav.
- Private events: The room is available after café hours under the permits Council approved on Oct. 8.
At Homes by TLC, we pay attention to how new spots like Maizal change daily routines in Starland. If you live nearby and are curious how this stretch of Habersham affects what your home is worth, start with Get My Free Home Valuation and we'll put together a local read for you.
