When I caught Tina Tedla, owner of Enat Ethiopian Restaurant, over the phone in early June, it was a Thursday afternoon and she was running back and forth from Uptown to Optimist Hall, where she expanded with her second location in May 2022.
The space served as a convenient prep kitchen for her appearance at that weekend’s Taste of Charlotte festival, where she has won an award for her classic lamb dish during her first appearance in 2022.
That year, Tedla and the Enat team ran out of food relatively early in the weekend, and she promised herself never to make the same mistake again. She couldn’t tell me how many plates she was making — the team would serve red split lentil stew, derek lamb tibs, and beef sambusa — she only knew that she would make enough.
“Honestly, it’s hard to tell,” she said. “I know every year we get different people to try Ethiopian food. So really, we just go until we run out and prep more as we go. We gauge it by how busy we get, and we just make sure we have enough.”
On June 17, Tedla celebrated seven years in business at Enat Ethiopian Restaurant, which she opened in Shops at CitiSide at the corner of The Plaza and Eastway Drive in 2017. The location is still open, as Optimist Hall represents a more fast-paced version of the traditional Ethiopian dining experience.
We talked to Tina about how the expansion has gone for her business, what she’s learned during her seven years as a Charlotte restaurateur, and what comes next for Enat.
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