Our Story

Rundassa Eshete came to America on a scholarship to get his 2nd Master’s degree in business in 1993. Due to visa issues and struggles to get out of Russian where he had completed his 1st degree, he ended up attending Brigham Young University in Utah. He had never heard of Utah prior to moving here and he has stayed here ever since. Meanwhile, his family back home in Ethiopia was being persecuted and struggling in their fight for basic freedoms for their nationality of the Oromo people. Several of his family members had died from different reasons connected to this struggle and most of his remaining brothers and sisters risked their lives escaping to become refugees in Kenya.

Rundassa was determined to help his family and over several years of paperwork, adoption of a niece and nephew, and other excruciating long immigration processes, three brothers and two sisters made it to Utah to join Rundassa.

Not long after their arrival Rundassa bought out a business from a Sudanese family that was on Redwood Road called African Mini Mart in hopes of providing work for his newly immigrated family. We kept the name and mini-mart for a few years and added the restaurant to the business, the first Ethiopian restaurant for Utah. We have been able to keep it running all these years, mostly due to Rundassa’s business mind and his sister Bullallee’s cooking and endless work hours.

In 2018 we were in desperate need to find a new location for the restaurant but on our small budget, this was a difficult process. Rundassa ended up buying an old dilapidated pawn shop on State Street. Gutting the building and exposing its original framework and converting the business to meet the structural code for a restaurant was a huge endeavor. Then Rundassa designed the space and added a lot of wood to the decor since the previous business left behind some massive tree trunks and other wood shelving. As a result, our restaurant has some unique tables and a huge bar made from recycling the wood. We’d like to thank Brian Vorwaller (our cousin) for his talents with woodwork for the results.

Right when the restaurant was almost ready to be moved over to the new location, our chef (Rundassa’s sister) Bullallee badly needed shoulder surgery and Covid-19 hit our country. The restaurant was then temporarily closed. More than a year later and the new restaurant building and chef are finally ready for business.

With the new location and re-opening of the restaurant, we renamed the restaurant to reflect the nationality of the Eshete family and millions of others living in the horn of Africa. Oromia is the largest landmass in Ethiopia and the largest nationality of people living in Ethiopia yet their language, culture, and identity has been suppressed and demeaned for over a century. The struggle continues today but finally, the language and its people are gathering momentum to stand up for their identity. In addition to the name change to Oromian Restaurant, our menu has chosen to call the different dishes by their Oromo name.

Enjoy the delicious East African cuisine!