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Meet Eden G. Egziabher, the mastermind behind Makina Cafe, New York’s first and only Ethiopian and Eritrean food truck, Black Enterprise reports.
Egziabher was born in Ethiopia to Eritrean parents and the inspiration behind her food truck came from just wanting people to experience authentic food from her home country. She started Makina cafe in 2017, offering food truck followers, authentic cuisine that they could take to go. But getting started wasn’t easy and Egziabher said the other truckers weren’t that welcoming.
“The other food truckers did not welcome us at all. When they see a woman behind [the truck]… they take it as a joke. When you show up and you are expected to fail, you are going to work harder,” she said.
But that hard work made her street food legendary. Before she knew it, people were lining up to see what was on the menu. Makina Cafe offers a variety of Ethiopian and Eritrean dishes including injera bread, gomen, and sambusas. Egziabher said she has to go to great lengths to ensure her food tastes as authentic as possible, traveling as far as Washington, DC to shop for spices and ingredients that she can’t find in other stores.
“It’s very challenging the fact that I can’t go to a regular grocery store [to get] the ingredients I want. You really have to think outside the box to think about how you are going to make some of these items food truck friendly. It would make a lot of our jobs easier if we had someone to follow, but we didn’t so we created our lane and a lot of it has been trial and error,” Egziabher said.
Makina Cafe was recently named a “Street Food Icon,” by Vice’s Munchies. From the looks of it, they have no intentions on slowing down!
You can stay up to date with Makina Cafe via social media and see where the truck is going to be everyday.
Congratulations Eden!
Photo Courtesy of @MakinaCafe/Instagram