The year two Burundi refugees opened Baobab Fare. Waka is their second act.
Hamissi Mamba and Nadia Nijimbere already gave Detroit one restaurant. Now they have given it a second. The couple, refugees from Burundi who opened the acclaimed Baobab Fare in New Center in 2021, just opened Waka, a fast-casual East African spot in Eastern Market, in the former Russell Street Deli.
Waka is the everyday version of what they do. It serves stewed meats and vegetables wrapped in chapati, the East African flatbread, alongside brochettes, skewered meat grilled over charcoal. It is counter service, roughly thirty seats, built for a quick lunch rather than a night out. A big idea, made reachable.
"They came to Detroit with nothing familiar and built two restaurants the city lines up for."
That arc is the part worth sitting with. Two people arrived as refugees, learned a new city, and did not just find a place in it, they added to it, twice. Baobab Fare made them a name. Waka is them betting on that name again, in one of Detroit's most storied markets.
It also widens who gets to build here. Immigrant and refugee founders are one of the quiet engines of any real food city, and Detroit backing them, and lining up for them, says something about the kind of place it wants to be. Not a closed door, a longer table.
This is exactly the kind of builder ANF exists to spotlight. People who started with nothing local and built something the whole city claims. Mamba and Nijimbere did it once, then did it again, on their own terms.
They did not wait for Detroit to make room. They made their own, and set two tables.