Transcription/translation of three or four words in an Arabic-like alphabet

[nou]

Hello! I'm a local historian working on a series of articles about London Road, Croydon, and I could do with some help interpreting an archived shopfront image from Google Street View.

The shopfront in question is the yellow one on the left in this Street View image. Could someone give me a transcription and translation of the non-English words

Comments

[pne]

I read "سه‌فین" on the top row and "چیشتخانه وكه‌بابی" below.

The first seems to be the name of the shop; I would tentatively transcribe it "Sefeen" (with "e" as in "bet" and "ee" as in "feet").

The bottom is presumably what kind of shop it is, tentatively "chishtkhâneh ve-kebâbi".

Using final heh in the middle of a word like that for the vowel "eh" (as in "bet") is a Kurdish thing, I think; I'm not sure whether Persian also does that.

"khaneh" is a "house" in Persian, I think, so this is probably something like "grill(?)-house and kebabs", though I don't know what "chisht" is.

So my educated guess would be Persian or Kurdish.

[lareinemisere]

I don't speak any of the languages in question, but have bought chips from a lot of UK kebab shops in my time. ;)

'Shish kebabs' are the kind that come on skewers. In the UK, they're slightly less common than 'doner kebabs', where slices are carved off a big central hunk of meat and served in pitta bread. I'd guess this shop sells both types: you generally get doner or both, but not shish on their own.

According to Wikpedia's page on kebabs, 'shish' comes from Turkish, which makes sense if this shop is Kurdish-owned...

[nou]

Thank you! It did indeed sell shish kebabs, according to the old menu I've seen. And also shawarma, kofte, iskender, and adana kebabs. Is doner the same as shawarma? I've never been quite sure.