Rochester welcomed its first Ethiopian store earlier this summer. Adey Abeba General Import and Ethiopian Store is an Ethiopian store that carries a variety of cultural items and Ethiopian food options.
Kebebe Abay, the owner of Adey Abebe, is Ethiopian and knows the struggle of finding ingredients for traditional foods, especially in the Minnesota area.
Abay is from Eagan, but has friends in the Ethiopian community in Rochester. Abay spent time in Rochester and announced his plans to the St. George Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. He was met with positive feedback and excitement.
“We studied the community over here,” said Abay. “We sat and discussed and when I told our friends here, when we told them (they were) very happy.”
He knew there wasn’t anywhere to get certain Ethiopian ingredients in the area and people were coming to the cities two to four times a month for these items. One of these staples is injera, a thin Ethiopian flatbread.
“Everybody at home has injera. This is common. For example, Americans have to have bread. This is like that all the time. You have to have this. So they go to Minneapolis or St. Paul. They buy two or three (bags of injera) for a week or for 15 days,” he said.
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