Inside a small brick building on Central Avenue one recent morning, after giving the dark beans a few more minutes on the stove, Shito Negussie inspects them, tosses a few that don\u2019t meet her quality standards and puts them in the grinder. The fresh grounds go in the jebena, an Ethiopian coffee pot, back on the stove. She flits around the Charlotte restaurant with ease as she sets up cups and snacks, keeping one eye trained on the pot and another on the back door. Suddenly, it opens. \u201cGood morning, Mama,\u201d Yodite Tesafye says, kissing her mother on the cheek, while Negussie chides her daughter softly for not waking up earlier.<\/p>\n
Abugida, Central Avenue\u2019s most well-known Ethiopian restaurant, will be open in a few minutes. But for now, as they sip from steaming cups, Tesafye and her mom are back in their home country for a few minutes longer. It\u2019s this sense of tradition that many of Charlotte\u2019s African immigrants, from the East to the West, bring with them to keep their roots alive in their new country \u2014 using faith, language and customs. Abugida\u2019s dining room is just one of those spaces.<\/p>\n
ROYAL AFRICAN CUISINE You don\u2019t have to travel 5,000 miles to taste the many flavors of West Africa. Just visit Eastway Crossing\u2019s Royal African Cuisine. Owner Frank Appiah takes pride in the variety and quality of cuisine served at his restaurant, featuring fare from Nigeria, Togo, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal and his home country of Ghana. Appiah opened the restaurant in September 2019. He\u2019s spent half of his two decades in the United States in Charlotte, moving here during his early 20s to \u201cpursue his dreams.\u201d He worked for Intel for a while \u2014 but dreams change. With an engineering and technology background, he knows it was a \u201ccrazy\u201d choice to open a restaurant, but he said it was a needed addition to the community. \u201cI\u2019m somebody who likes to eat outside,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I came here, it was like there was basically nothing.\u201d There were a few African spots with foods from different countries. Appiah had the idea to create a one-stop shop for people interested in finding all of the flavors of West Africa in a single sitting. \u201cThat was how the idea was actually born,\u201d he said. Appiah\u2019s wife, who specializes in hospitality management, manages the kitchen \u2014 where everything from fufu, egusi, jollof rice, red snapper, peanut butter soup and okra are made daily \u2014 while Appiah handles the customers.<\/p>\n
About half are African immigrants, Appiah estimates, but more Black Charlotteans are visiting Royal African Cuisine for a taste, too \u2014 joining Appiah\u2019s son in his corner table at the restaurant. While raising his son in Charlotte, Appiah said it\u2019s been important to him to teach his son his language, Twi, and feed him the same foods he was raised on. It\u2019s been hard getting the word out about his restaurant to the community, and opening right before the pandemic has been a struggle, Appiah admits. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been easy,\u201d he said. \u201cSome days I\u2019ll go home and cry. Some days I\u2019ll go home with a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we are still here.\u201d Appiah, who fell in love with Charlotte during his first visit, said the city has changed dramatically during the decade he\u2019s lived here \u2014 for the better. \u201cI see the future coming to Charlotte,\u201d he said. That, and one other memory, makes him hopeful for his restaurant\u2019s future. During the first few months of Royal African Cuisine\u2019s opening, a man came in and ate by himself. After he finished his meal, he told Appiah, \u201cI haven\u2019t been home in 16 years. Thank you \u2026 you brought Africa to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
MOYHE HAIR BRAIDING Nearby, at Moyhe Hair Braiding, Moyhe-Eugenie N\u2019Dri-Zie\u2019s fingers deftly weave through her client\u2019s hair. But N\u2019Dri-Zie wasn\u2019t always this skilled \u2014 she had to start somewhere. When she was in middle school, Moyhe-Eugenie N\u2019Dri-Zie begged her cousins, sisters and mom to let her style their hair. At 12, she\u2019d braid their hair with unpracticed fingers and put a relaxer on their heads, sometimes burning their scalps in the process. But now, with nearly 50 years of practice under her belt, none of N\u2019Dri-Zie\u2019s customers leaves unhappy.<\/p>\n
N\u2019Dri-Zie opened Charlotte\u2019s first official braiding shop 26 years ago, she said, just a year after she moved to the Queen City. Born and raised in West Africa\u2019s Ivory Coast, N\u2019Dri-Zie immigrated to Queens, New York, joining a cousin, when she was about 26. N\u2019Dri-Zie, who had studied computer science and accounting in Africa, took English classes at LaGuardia Community College, and in the afternoons, she helped out at a friend\u2019s salon. \u201cIt was my passion to do hair, but I never thought, \u2018I will do it,\u2019\u201d she said. In Africa, N\u2019Dri-Zie said being a hairstylist is not a sought-after career, so her father didn\u2019t approve.<\/p>\n
But once N\u2019Dri-Zie found out she could make a career out of doing something she loved, she never looked back. Soon after, she opened her first hair salon in Queens on Eastside Avenue. One turned into two, but the cousin N\u2019Dri-Zie had in New York encouraged N\u2019Dri-Zie and her husband to move out of New York once they started having children. The cousin moved to Greensboro, and N\u2019Dri-Zie gave it a shot. But as someone who grew up in Ivory Coast\u2019s capital city, she couldn\u2019t deal with the slower pace of the city. She decided on Charlotte. \u201cWe will apply for an apartment,\u201d she said to her cousin. \u201cIf we get approved, that means God wants us to move here.\u201d Mere days later, and N\u2019Dri-Zie started her life in the Queen City.<\/p>\n
When she first moved, she wondered, \u201cWhere are all the people in the streets?\u201d Her cousin replied, \u201cIn their house or in the mall.\u201d In the years since then, Charlotte is unrecognizable, she said \u2014 and the Ivory Coast community is growing, too. She joins them every week in church at Mont Carmel International Church of God on Plaza and Sugar Creek, which has a congregation composed of mostly immigrants. And every week, she thanks God for her life in Charlotte. \u201cI love it here,\u201d she said. Now, when N\u2019Dri-Zie refers to \u201chome,\u201d she no longer means the Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n
\u201cCheck my driver\u2019s license,\u201d she said. \u201cIt says North Carolina.\u201d ABUGIDA ETHIOPIAN RESTAURANT Back at Abugida, Tesafye is reflecting on her first few weeks in Charlotte, remembering how quiet it was. She\u2019d grown up in Ethiopia, then immigrated with her family to the Washington, D.C., area for a year. There, she was surrounded by other Ethiopian immigrants, including aunts and uncles and cousins, so it still felt like a \u201clittle bit of home.\u201d But Charlotte was another story.<\/p>\n
There were no other Ethiopian students in her classes and no family nearby, and Tesafye, who was still learning English and taking ESL classes, felt lost. It was a difficult couple of years of transition for the 16-year-old, whose mother had brought her to America for better educational opportunities. \u201cIt was quite a shock for me,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the kids will make fun of you. I just hated that.\u201d At home, though, Tesafye\u2019s mother began growing a community through her cooking. As more Ethiopian immigrants arrived in Charlotte, Negussie would invite them over and feed them. They\u2019d tell her to open a restaurant, Tesafye remembers, but Negussie would always explain she couldn\u2019t take the risk with kids. Her responsibility was to them, she\u2019d reply. Years later, Tesafye took the risk for her.<\/p>\n
Abugida opened in 2017. The restaurant \u2014 kitchen manned by Negussie, managed by Tesafye and partnered with her brother \u2014 has allowed the family to keep doing what they love: gathering people through food. Tesafye wanted the restaurant to be a gift for her mom \u2014 but also to the Charlotte community. \u201cI really wanted to teach \u2026 about cultural food,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you notice, there is Indian, there is Mexican, there is Chinese (food). Beyond that, it\u2019s very rare. \u201cA lot of people have a misconception of Africa. We have so many flavors, so many dishes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the pandemic put an end to it, Tesafye and her mother would perform a traditional Ethiopian tea ceremony for customers, showing them their daily custom. Every morning, even at home on the days the restaurant is closed, the family gathers for coffee. \u201cDrinking coffee is like having a conversation,\u201d she said. \u201cSitting together, the ceremony, making a cup of fresh-roasted coffee every morning, having that is a big deal for us.\u201d Tesafye loves when first-time customers find something they like on the menu, something that reminds them of the food they grew up on. \u201cEven though the injera is different\u2026 they will find something that they relate to,\u201d Tesafye said. \u201cThen you start to see them relaxing.\u201d The support the restaurant has received from the Plaza Midwood community has been shocking, Tesafye said. She said residents of the neighborhood are big supporters of small businesses, and they\u2019ve continued to come back for years. And the local Ethiopian community has supported them since the beginning. They\u2019d leave $90 tips for $10 meals, just to help out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never had to struggle,\u201d she said. When the family first moved to Charlotte, they lived off Central Avenue, where there was a mix of Asian, Somalian, Ethiopian and Hispanic families. But Tesafye fears what will happen if housing prices continue to rise. \u201cHousing is going to change this community,\u201d she said. \u201cI think three or four years from now, most of the businesses you see over here \u2026 I don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to see that.\u201d It\u2019s disappointing \u2014 Tesafye knows the value of a diverse community. She grew up sharing meals and conversations with people from different cultures and discovering similarities across them in the process. And to Tesafye, there\u2019s no better way to bridge those differences than over a cup of coffee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Smoke coils in the kitchen, and the earthy smell of roasting coffee beans fills the air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":10665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,16],"tags":[7,30,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-10668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"category-news","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-news"},"yoast_head":"\n