It’s a team effort among friends at new grocery-cafe

ST. PAUL >> MIDWAY

Run by a group of immigrant women, Mama’s Market & Deli, adjoining art gallery now open on Snelling Avenue

By Frederick Melo

On St. Paul’s Snelling Avenue, a group of women — who work jobs ranging from overnight postal employee, hospital worker, nursing home attendant to charter school paraprofessional — are rotating duties at their own newly launched micro-grocery and cafe. Most of them are mothers to three, four or even five children, and are the inspiration for the name Mama’s Market & Deli.

The women, all of them Ethiopian immigrants, are hoping to entice passersby to swing in for what they’re marketing as some of the best slow-brewed coffee in town.

When Amina Fadlalla heard that a nonprofit run by African immigrants was opening a new commercial space for small vendors near Hamline University, she jumped at the chance to debut Najwa Cultural Attire, a modest sales booth for dresses and goods reflecting her Ethiopian and Sudanese heritage. The one-room business, which is named after one of her four daughters, fills a “micro-hotel” within the new 15,000-square-foot, two-story building that occupies the space where the fire-damaged Great Fans and Blinds store once stood.Organizers with African Economic Development Solutions were thinking bigger. Would Fadlalla have the wherewithal to run an entire shop the size of a convenience store on the ground level of their new Snelling Avenue headquarters?

No, no she would not, said Fadlalla, at least not without eight other proud Ethiopian women by her side. Fadlalla, a certified registered nurse, charter school paraprofessional and mother of five kids, recruited a circle of working moms and immigrant women to literally buy into her plans for a cafe and grocery co-operative.

“We have to make a team,” she recalled thinking. “We talked to our friends.”

Following a year of planning, Mama’s Market & Deli was born this summer at 678 N. Snelling Ave., between Blair and Van Buren avenues. It’s been serving up steak sandwiches, fresh fruit smoothies, Ethiopian coffees and other prepared breakfast and lunch foods next to everyday grocery staples — milk, juice and boxes of mac and cheese — as well as Ethiopian essentials, from dried split peas and boxed couscous to bags of spices like turmeric, berbere and mitmita.

Masala chicken panini

Shortly after arriving in the U.S., Sada Abdulwahab landed a job at a Subway sandwich shop as a “sandwich artist,” and then worked her way up to store manager before becoming a hospital worker and nursing student. Much of the deli menu, including the best-selling masala chicken panini sandwich, is of her own creation.

“I made the sauce, I made the recipe, and that’s my own recipe,” she said, while carving up a foot-long sandwich last week.

At 2 p.m. every Sunday, or other times by special request, the ladies slow-brew Ethiopian coffee using traditional stone hearth roasters, heating the beans for an hour before serving them in small espresso cups from a knee-high display. It’s the basis of a social coffee hour that harkens back to a slower, more family-oriented time in Ethiopia.

The store carries some fresh fruits and vegetables, like potatoes, onions and packages of refrigerated grapes and strawberries, but organizers are hoping for loans and other financial backing to expand their offerings.

“We didn’t get any financial support from anyone,” said Farris Hassan, an information technology specialist who has been helping his wife and the eight other women launch their co-op and figure out how to pay a commercial rent and stock shelves on their own dime. “Everything we’ve done is from our own pocket, as a team. To bring healthy food to the city, we need more support, and we’re looking for more support.”

Each of the nine women put in at least $5,000 in starting capital and devotes at least 16 hours per week to running the grocery and deli, which has its own drive-in garage and shopping carts. The work hours are treated like deposits toward earned shares in the cooperative, which will become officialized, or vested, in December. Until then, they can’t count on earning a dime of salary, Hassan said.

Museum, art gallery

Also debuting this month is a one-room museum and art gallery within the same building as Mama’s Market and near the grocery entrance. Robyne Robinson, a former television newscaster and art consultant, has been assisting African Economic Development Solutions with community surveys and other guidance intended to help curate the space.

AEDS Operations Director Tsegaye Gelgelu said these are exciting times for AEDS, which recently relocated from the Griggs-Midway building on Fairview Avenue to the second floor of its new Snelling Avenue building, directly above Mama’s Market. The nonprofit has also opened an office in Portland, Ore., which has a growing population of African immigrants.

While Snelling Avenue has lost some notable African vendors in recent years, like the Fasika Ethiopian restaurant, the area also gained some new shops, like Udo’s African Restaurant and Groceries, which relocated from University Avenue to a fancier storefront on Snelling.

The new Dilla Ethiopian restaurant and sports bar also has been a draw further west on University Avenue, bringing a bit of a nightclub atmosphere when the sun goes down.