Has Anyone Seen This Restaurant's Three Tons Of Chickpeas?

You know what's the absolute worst? When you can't get your hands on the three tons of legumes. Like, you could've sworn you left them in the back alley, and yet, maybe they're in your other coat pocket? According to the Washington City Paper, Little Sesame, an Israeli-style fast-casual eatery in D.C., seems to have done just that. The two-location chain expected a shipment of 6,150 pounds of chickpeas, and they're nowhere to be found. For context, that's about the weight of six moose, or three great white sharks, or one adult killer whale. This missing shipment is, to put it in scientific terms, an assload of chickpeas.

The two Little Sesame locations get all the chickpeas for their falafel—about 25,000 pounds annually—from a farmer in Montana named Casey Bailey. Bailey shipped 6,150 pounds of beans to D.C. on January 30. The package was last seen in Landover, Maryland, on February 10. The UPS tracker shows that the legume pallets allegedly arrived at Little Sesame on February 24, but no one's actually seen them. So on Monday afternoon they... vanished? Were stolen by a Hamburgler-esque bean thief? Fell down a drain and clogged the district's entire septic system? Are being held for ransom? All very unclear.

The restaurant thinks its UPS insurance will cover the loss of the chickpeas, but the mystery remains. Plus, Little Sesame will have to find a replacement chickpea purveyor in the meantime to make up for this evaporated cargo.

Consider this our official chickpea APB: have you seen crates upon crates of beans somewhere between Montana and Washington, D.C.? Please contact the hummus emporium. They're very worried about their beans.