#2562 #S1262 - Shewaber, Seattle - 6/12/2014

Shewaber, Seattle, WA

There are 50-some countries in Africa but for whatever reason I rarely seem to see any except Ethiopian/Eritrean ones in Seattle.  And there are couple dozen of these around the city -- five in three blocks on East Cherry Street -- but it wasn't that way when Zufan Abebe opened Mesob in that area. As Charles Mudede described it, "Anyone who lived near this location at that time, the late '90s, saw the grand opening as something of a godsend because there wasn't another restaurant for miles around (or what felt like miles around). That corner, and the Central District as a whole, was still in the shadow of the bleak crack years ..."

Adebe operated Mesob in an amiable small box of a building for about 15 years before the condo-rolling wheels of gentrification and development finally rolled over the place in 2013. She moved her operation a few blocks south to a prosaic strip mall building in the Little Saigon area, and carried on much as before, including the little bar, for three more years. You didn't go here for craft cocktails, but I quite liked the food, even though I don't know enough about the cuisine to critique it, and I always require a few extra napkins due to my clumsy use of the spongy injera to deliver food from fingers to mouth. It's nice to have a lot of other Ethiopian options in town now, but I do miss the lonely little blue box on Jefferson with the bar in back.

South Seattle Ethiopian restaurants

1221 S Main St, Seattle, WA 98144 - (206) 860-0403
Est. 2013 - Closed 2016 - Building constructed: 1991
Previous bars in this location: None known
Web site: facebook
Reviews: thestranger - yelp - tripadvisor