Feel at home in Ethiopian restaurant

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/06/2014 (4108 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You don’t have to travel to Africa for authentic Ethiopian food.

Simply head over to Queen Sheba Restaurant and Bar, located at 615 Sargent Ave., which has been operating since April this year, but held its official grand opening on June 7 and 8.

Owners Tewodros Abasha and Tedane Molla are the husband and wife team in charge of the Ethiopian eatery, but customers will sometimes see the couple’s four-year-old daughter and two-year-old son at the restaurant as well.

Molla said it is imperative that all Ethiopian food be made fresh.

“What’s different in Ethiopian cuisine is the way you prepare it. It has to be fresh,” she said.

A common item on an Ethiopian menu is injera, which Molla describes as a big piece of flatbread with a spongy texture, made with grain that’s “close to quinoa, but not exactly quinoa.”

“You have to make it every day — that has to be fresh. It doesn’t stay (fresh) for more than a day,” Molla said.

Molla and Abasha, have been in Winnipeg for almost five years, coming from Uganda in November of 2009, although both are originally from Ethiopia. However, once settled in, they didn’t open up a restaurant right away.

“When I came, I had my first baby after two months,” she said.

Molla then went to school to take a health care aide course, and she was a health care aide for three years.

“I used to own a restaurant in Uganda,” Molla said. “I love cooking. I think that’s what I want to do with my life.”

Abasha has always wanted to run a business, so pair that with Molla’s love of cooking, and it’s a recipe for success — but it wasn’t so clear right away.

“One day, we saw this place in January (this year), we saw that it was leasing, so my husband came to me and said, ‘We can make it work,’” Molla said.

Molla asked Abasha to show her where the building — which used to be Midnight Vietnamese BBQLast Food — was, and for her, it was not love at first sight.

“Oh, my God, it needed a lot of work. The place wasn’t very clean,” Molla said. “Here in Canada, if we don’t have lots of capital, of course we’re going to have to do everything ourselves.”

Molla said a week later, she returned and had a change of heart, signing the lease in mid-January.

Since then, Molla said she and Abasha have been working hard to create an environment that feels more like home than a restaurant.

“For me, it’s personal,” Molla said. “I love to see people coming to your place. They eat your food and you see when they enjoy it. You make them feel at home.”

Molla said she and her husband don’t go out to many restaurants because the process is too mechanical and cold.

“You go, you sit down, you eat, and you go home. I don’t want that,” Molla said. “We want (our customers) to come in and feel at home.”

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