Roughly two weeks after the death of co-owner Amer Fakhoury and announcing the restaurant’s closure, the Fakhoury family says it reconsidered and is working toward a mid-October reopening.

“We were going through a bit of an emotional time,” said Zoya Fakhoury, one of Amer Fakhoury’s four daughters. “After, my family was thinking about it. My dad really loved the restaurant. He worked so hard on it. We don’t want to throw it away. We want to continue on everything he worked on.”

Zoya Fakhoury and her sister Guila said Friday they were persuaded to reconsider the closure by the outpouring of love and support they received from Little Lebanon patrons following their father’s death Aug. 17.

“Our customers are great,” said Zoya Fakhoury. “They’ve stuck with us. We don’t want leave them hanging.”

“It was hard thinking about this and making the decision,” said Guila Fakhoury, referencing comments she made last month in which she expressed it would be difficult emotionally for her family to operate the restaurant without her father. “I do know once we do open and go through those emotions, we’re going to be so happy and grateful to see those customers back.”

Amer Fakhoury, 57, succumbed to Stage 4 lymphoma at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. He died five months after U.S. officials freed him in March from a six-month detainment in his native Lebanon.

Lebanese officials had detained him Sept. 12, 2019, over allegations he tortured prisoners in the 1990s at the former Khiam Prison, a prison run by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army.

Lebanon and Israel have been officially at war since Israel’s creation in 1948. Lebanon bans its citizens from traveling to Israel or having contact with Israelis.

Amer Fakhoury lost 80 pounds and developed Stage 4 cancer during his sixth-month detainment, which ended in March after the U.S. government threatened sanctions against the people and officials involved and a judge dismissed the charges against him.

The family, Amer Fakhoury’s attorney and U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, all maintained his innocence and said he was charged to further an anti-Israel political agenda.

Lebanese officials detained Amer Fakhoury Sept. 12 while he and his family were on vacation. The family closed Little Lebanon in late summer 2019 to take that vacation, intending it to be a temporary closure. The restaurant has been closed since.

Little Lebanon got its start in Somersworth in 2003 when Amer and wife Michelle purchased the former Quick To Go on High Street. They moved the business to 547 Central Ave. in Dover in 2011, and operated the business seven days a week with their daughters.

Local residents and business leaders have said Little Lebanon was a big hit, both for its food and the atmosphere that made it a neighborhood favorite.

Michelle Fakhoury will continue to cook her recipes and run the business when Little Lebanon reopens in mid-October, Zoya and Guila Fakhoury said. The family also will hire employees to help make sandwiches and operate the cash register.

Guila Fakhoury said hiring additional employees was part of her parents’ plans once they returned from the Lebanon vacation because Zoya, the youngest of the Fakhoury girls, graduated college and secured another job a few months before the vacation.

In addition to reopening the restaurant, the family plans to announce a special project in memory of Amer on Sept. 12, the one-year anniversary of the day he was detained.

“We’re preparing something in memory and honor of him,” said Guila Fakhoury, describing the project as something that will help others and help bring “joy” following a trying year.

More information will be posted about the project and restaurant’s reopening date at a later date on Little Lebanon To Go’s Facebook page.