It's interesting to see the dynamic of new ethnic food. Immigrants come and discover that their best hope of owning their own business is a restaurant where they work themselves to death to offer cheap interesting food. I'd love to see a history of ethnic food in America: Jewish, Chinese, Italian, Vietnamese, Mexican. There's a Somali restaurant near where I work, next door to a mosque, but the only thing I've been brave enough to try there is the Gyros which is quite generic. It's good food at a great value if you don't mind waiting forever while they prepare it.
Minneapolis is a sanctuary city and has a huge Somali population, so there are a lot of Somali restaurants. But Somalis haven't really "cracked the code" on how to run an American-style restaurant in terms of service, for the most part. And really, I don't think Somali food is a "great cuisine" food the way Ethiopian is (man, Ethiopians and Somalis are nothing alike!), or Vietnamese, or Thai, or Mexican, or Indian. It's more like, say, Polish food... something workmanlike that can be made excellent with effort, but lacks the ease of the great cuisines.
On the positive side, a couple of Somali places and a Kenyan place in town have cracked the code, and are offering slick, friendly Chipotle-style counter service experiences with really delicious food.
