A Sea Of Red

New restaurant opening up on Maint St. It's in the 12th & Main location that seems to be a revolving door of restaurants. It's been a Subway, a couple Mexican tries, and that awesome breakfast place (can't remember the name), among others.

This time it's In-Jera, and says it's going to be Ethiopian & Eritrean cuisine. Anyone know what cuisine is like in Ethiopia and Eritrea? And before anyone says it...no, it's not porridge.

Purple, no starving kid jokes.

Ethiopian cuisine characteristically consists of vegetable and often very spicy meat dishes, usually in the form of wat, a thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread, which is about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter and made out of fermented teff flour.Ethiopians eat exclusively with their right hands, using pieces of injera to pick up bites of entrées and side dishes. Utensils are rarely used with Ethiopian cuisine.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church prescribes a number of fasting periods, including Wednesdays, Fridays, and the entire Lenten season; so Ethiopian cuisine contains many dishes that are vegan.

That's the Wikipedia overview.
and here's the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_cuisine#Dishes

You know why they use their right hand only don't you?

I'd have to look at Wikipedia article I quoted.

ALUmnus wrote:... and that awesome breakfast place (can't remember the name), among others.

I think it was called the Hash House, and yeah it was pretty good haha

The Hash House was so good.

Ethiopian is the hot genre of the moment sort of like Lebanese/Turkish of 5 years ago or Thai/Vietnamese a decade ago. I'm not a huge fan in my limited exposure. But it certainly is flavorful.

Yeah, not too sure how an Ethi restaurant will go over in Lynchburg. When we lived in Kenya, we used to eat it occasionally. My wife never did acquire a taste for it. I like 90% of it, but I don't like the injera.... it's a fermented flat bread, all spongy and kind of soggy. One of my best friends loved it, and he always wanted the injera that had soaked up the liquid from all of the other items.

I wonder how long this place will last, if an amazing breakfast place, a Subway, and multiple attempts at Mexican couldn't survive there, a niche like Ethiopian might have some problems. Or it could turn out like the Middle Eastern restaurant in Newark, DE that's survived on the most stereotypical college town street I've ever seen with every kind of bar imaginable, and four pizza places. Knowing what I know about Newark it could be because they have hookah.

Wow, Jake can turn anything into Delaware/Maryland almost as easily as Sly can reference Texas.

It's a gift that only a few people posses.

I give it maybe 6 months... There is a reason that location doesn't work and this concept won't change that...

Only good thing...Equipments all there and they will have limited investment getting in and should be able to control how much they lose while figuring out the restaurant industry is an unforgiving business...

If you know these people - be a friend and tell them to stop...

Part of the problem is that the venue is just old and not very nice. The interior needs a complete overhaul.

Same with Delicia's. I love their food, but the facility needs a lot of help.

prototype wrote:There is a reason that location doesn't work and this concept won't change that...

What's the reason? I haven't paid enough attention to know so I'm asking seriously.

prototype wrote:I give it maybe 6 months... There is a reason that location doesn't work and this concept won't change that...

Only good thing...Equipments all there and they will have limited investment getting in and should be able to control how much they lose while figuring out the restaurant industry is an unforgiving business...

If you know these people - be a friend and tell them to stop...

Guess they didn't sign on to your marketing firm.....

HASH HOUSE!

My wife hated it but man was that place good.

Purple Haize wrote:

prototype wrote:I give it maybe 6 months... There is a reason that location doesn't work and this concept won't change that...

Only good thing...Equipments all there and they will have limited investment getting in and should be able to control how much they lose while figuring out the restaurant industry is an unforgiving business...

If you know these people - be a friend and tell them to stop...

Guess they didn't sign on to your marketing firm.....

I'm sure that's the reason they won't make it Marketing is not the issue...

My wife and I had lunch there with a friend who took some pics for us while she was pregnant with our son when it was a mexican restaurant.

what a horrible sentence

sorry, that's all that comes to mind

Sorry, had to use my phone the last couple weeks after the computer crapped out. hoping to finally get a replacement this week.

your phone has very poor English skillz

BJWilliams wrote:My wife and I had lunch there with a friend who took some pics for us while she was pregnant with our son when it was a mexican restaurant.

ALUmnus wrote:what a horrible sentence

sorry, that's all that comes to mind

To recap: BJ and his wife had lunch at In-Jera with a friend. Said friend took some pictures for BJ and his wife. This photographer/friend was also a surrogate for their child. The child, sadly, was not human while in utero, but was in reality a mexican restaurant. This fact has since changed, although it is not clear whether the son became human before or after birth.

SuperJon wrote:

prototype wrote:There is a reason that location doesn't work and this concept won't change that...

What's the reason? I haven't paid enough attention to know so I'm asking seriously.

Few things.

This building is in need of some major improvements and that's hard for a local one-off concept to handle and recoup.

Parking. Though there is a parking lot behind it - most people don't know that.

The way that restaurant is positioned - you only get traffic going one way to see it and actually get to it. If you are coming from downtown, you will not be able to see it, you have to go one block past and come back to it if you want to go.

It's located in-between the walking areas - most from west part of city will stop at Galleria and not many people walk from the east. White Heart make sit because it has a very good local owner and offers a simple menu that appeals to the masses.

There's no character to the building or location, and restaurants that do well downtown - have that "it" factor that make people drive downtown to go. i.e. Waterstone, Shoemakers, Depot, Main Street, etc...

No outdoor eating area - this really helps to have downtown, but if they had one they would be sitting right next to Main Street.

adam42381 wrote:

BJWilliams wrote:My wife and I had lunch there with a friend who took some pics for us while she was pregnant with our son when it was a mexican restaurant.

To recap: BJ and his wife had lunch at In-Jera with a friend. Said friend took some pictures for BJ and his wife. This photographer/friend was also a surrogate for their child. The child, sadly, was not human while in utero, but was in reality a mexican restaurant. This fact has since changed, although it is not clear whether the son became human before or after birth.

that is a fantastic explanation.

thank you for the clarification.

its all starting to make sense now.

ALUmnus wrote:your phone has very poor English skillz

Quite...what I was trying to say was that a friend of ours (who happens to be a photographer), did some maternity photos for us ahead of our finding out the gender of our first child (my son Michael). after the session was over we stopped at the restaurant that is now In Jera for lunch. kinda sad that so many concepts have tried and failed there. I think its been said that the first three rules of real estate are location, location and location.