“I grew up in Ethiopia and lived there for 22 years. I went to German School and by the age of 13, I spoke five languages. But that was everybody. My parents‘ friends owned hotels and I got to run around in them. It was a great adventure and I dreamed of owning my own restaurant.

Flying was also my passion. I had a choice of becoming a pilot or the hotel business. My dad said being a pilot was a bus driver in the sky. I went into the hotel business and worked with Hilton in Ethiopia and later Marriott. I followed a girl to Germany and worked for Pepsi Cola and Pizza Hut and developed my tactical skills. I traveled a lot and stopped at inns and went into their kitchens. I realized the dream of owning a restaurant was achievable.

I came to Mobile in 1992, to be with my ill mother. She lived another seven years. I was 40, young, and driven by goals when I opened Bienville Bistro on Conception Street.  If I had known what I would go through, maybe I wouldn’t have done it. At the time, there were no white cloth restaurants downtown open for dinner. Bienville Bistro was 996 square feet and we opened it for $20,000. It took off immediately, even if people were confused by an Ethiopian opening a French restaurant. Other fine dining restaurants followed, bringing more people downtown. There was so much potential and a gung-ho group trying to make Mobile work. I decided to expand, against some people’s advice, and quadrupled the size moving to where Southern National is now. We opened for $75,000 and did some good things. Then a horrible shooting happened and a doctor’s son was killed in March 1997. We heard the shots at 2 in the morning when we were walking out the door. That shooting also killed downtown and we had close. I quit and worked with Adam’s Mark Hotel until I opened NoJa in 2005.

My dad grew up in Texas where his father was a doctor and told stories of discrimination. My father was in his medical residency in Chicago when war broke out in the late 30s and he volunteered to go in the all-black Army. He studied medicine in France where he met Ethiopians and was impressed with their intelligence and business ownership. My father went from war straight to Ethiopia. He was a general surgeon and met my mother in Ethiopia. That was around 1947. They dressed up, danced, and partied a lot. My mother was from Madagascar. Her dad was French and we have a big family in France. I go there to visit every two years.

My father never trained us to have an inferior complex about being black. When I came to the U.S. in 1975, I had never faced racism. We flew from Ethiopia and landed in New York. I was not programmed to have fear and was shocked when people kept telling me I should be afraid. Going to college at Michigan State was my first time living in the U.S. My parents raised us to be independent and entrepreneurs.

When we moved into this location on Jackson Street, the name was Plates at Six. We needed a new name, but I couldn’t find the right one. There was a street party here with the logo NoJa for North Jackson. That was it.

I have a great team and crew. I was hoping to retire and get out of their hair. I have pulled back and they are running it fine. My 69th birthday and NoJa’s 15th anniversary are this month. We were going to have a celebration, but all of that was postponed because of the Coronavirus. We shifted to curbside and to-go orders. Thankfully people keep supporting us. Maybe next year we will celebrate 69 plus one and 15 plus one.

There are changes restaurants will have to make to reopen that are going to be additional expenses. We are going to need to do something about our open kitchen. Can we have a delivery service to help some of our older diners who shouldn’t get out? Will we only be able to use half of our seating? My concern is that when we reopen, we are only going to do half of what we normally do.

Mobile has changed in good ways since I opened Bienville Bistro almost 30 years ago. It wants to be open-minded, but it can’t quite get there. Outsiders have been good for Mobile and keep pushing to do things a little differently. We don’t have to do things the way they were always done.”