When freshman Jessica Anderson and a group of her floor mates returned to the campus after winter break, they couldn’t wait to reunite over their weekly tradition of dinner at Pita Plus.

But the Lehigh Road restaurant didn’t greet them with the smell of fresh-baked flatbread they were used to.

It was closed.

For Anderson and many other Jewish students on the campus, the Israeli-style restaurant wasn’t just another sandwich spot in downtown College Park – it was the only kosher restaurant in the entire county, said Rabbi Eli Backman of the Chabad Jewish Student Center.

“It’s sad,” Anderson said. “We were so shocked.”

Naomi Oppenheim, a junior family studies major, said students who keep kosher are now forced to eat at the Hillel Jewish Student Center or to go to Montgomery County restaurants for completely kosher meals.

Pita Plus was the only place in downtown College Park besides Hillel where students could get kosher meat, which is slaughtered, cleaned and prepared in accordance with Jewish law and ritual, Oppenheim said.

Students who eat meals at Hillel purchase a meal plan separate from the campus meal plans, she added.

Backman said while other local stores and restaurants – including The Commons Shop and the North Campus Shop – carry kosher food items, Pita Plus was the only place that provided full meals.

“It was a location where you could take a friend out,” said Backman, who sometimes had meetings with faculty members there.

Pita Plus’ menu included salads, falafel – a fried food traditionally made from chickpeas and spices – kebabs, combinations of meat and vegetables on skewers and schwarma, a flatbread wrap filled with meat, cucumber, tomato and humus.

One of Pita Plus’ previous owners, Maya Ochayun, said the restaurant did well when she was there.

“It [business] was wonderful,” she said.

Chaim Tor and Liora Dahan bought the restaurant in December 2004 from Ochayun and Shaul Rafael, who owns Shaul’s Kosher Market in Silver Spring, Ochayun said.

“It’s going to be sad for the community, but it’s all a business decision,” Backman said.

Contact reporter Tyeesha Dixon at dixondbk@gmail.com.