Not that I'm aware of sadly. I think Jums African Market did open a Food truck recently called "Desire", but the food is general African and not Ethiopian specifically.

There's good food in this town (especially compared to other places), but not ethnic food and not fine dining.

We've got like 170,000 people in town. Every restaurant that wants to stay open needs about 100 of those people to come in and eat every day. That's 700-1000 people every week. I would estimate that to stay open, even the tiniest hole-in-the-wall restaurant here must be both affordable and appetizing to at least 10% of the population.

By American standards, Ethiopian food seems very unusual. I tried it in Philly, at the best joint in town, with an actual Ethiopian community to go eat there regularly. I found it very challenging food to enjoy, both in terms of presentation and flavor. And compared to most people I meet here in Springfield, I'm like Anthony Bourdain levels of adventurous in my eating. I don't think 10% of Springfield would eat Ethiopian food. Fuck, I can't get a lot of people to eat Indian food.

There's just no way for niche restaurants to survive here. There's not enough people, and there's no cultural push to eat adventurously.

This is probably the only thing close.

I love Indian food but I agree it's so hard to get people to eat it. India Clay Oven in Branson is very good imo.

Not that i know of. Kc and stl both have some great Ethiopian food tho. Wheelhouse did a special where they were serving ethiopian like for two weeks four or five years ago and i think about it all the time.

Mesob in KC is pretty great.

No. KC or STL.

Really good take and I'd agree.

I think Thai food, or at least Americanized Thai is popular here. Same with Americanized Chinese.

Vietnamese, Korean, and Indian hold a small niche.

I'm with you though, I like trying new food, tried Ethiopian in a restaurant everyone raved about and, I just couldn't get into it. From the bread to the meat it was just not the right flavor or texture for me.

Zayka has been my go-to for starting people. I thought I didn't like Indian for years until I had good Indian food.

So there is an African market at bypass and Kearney by the Kum and Go. I happened upon it today and am food adventurous so I looked around.

The lady was very nice and said there is kind of an idea coming about within the African community here for a potential African restaurant. I asked if there was any main group of people coming from Africa and she said it was honestly pretty spread out. Which means Moroccan is not Ethiopian is not South Africa or tropical west Africa. Much the same as we see diff popular dishes historically in diff regions in the US. That honestly sounds pretty interesting because I’m ok with trying and liking diff things.

I’ve had Ethiopian before and it’s pretty good. Prob could support a small place here. But I’d welcome a range of flavors. We are so blessed nowadays to not just have another menu based on the idea of food from another culture or continent but be able to taste and realize the differences as people who have never visited that continent.

Ugh, I wish! I lived in KC during college and tried Ethiopian food; I adored it. But then I moved back here and we don’t really have that. At least the Indian places here in Springfield I enjoyed better than KC. Zayka and Taj Mahal hold a place in my heart.

I really like Taj Mahal. I can cook Ethiopian food, it would be nice to let someone else cook it so I can just enjoy it though.

I love Zayka. I know I'm not adding anything to this conversation, but I just wanted to throw it out there that Zayka is awesome. Those samosas are killer

You nailed it on the head. I was fairly gung-ho to open a fairly tiny hole in the wall this coming year, but the numbers simply don’t work out well enough when you take all the variables you mentioned into account.

As for the question at hand, man I wish there was Ethiopian food here, but good luck. I don’t even know how far you’d have to drive to get even homemade Injera, let alone some kitfo and tibs.