On the first morning of Ramadan, customers form a line around qatayef shops in the Old City of Nablus. A local report from May 2018 documented the queue outside a shop on al-Nasr Street. The family said its trade had begun in Jerusalem before moving to Nablus, where it had operated for roughly forty years. Demand was strongest during the first week of the fasting month.
Qatayef are small pancakes cooked on one side and taken home to be filled, commonly with cheese or nuts. The shopkeeper described them as uncommon on ordinary days but essential at the Ramadan iftar table. The customers are therefore not waiting for a finished dessert. They are buying the partly prepared shell so that each household can complete the final stage. The Old City queue links a four-decade family business to many separate evening meals.