Bukom Cafe, the West African restaurant that has anchored 18th Street NW in Adams Morgan since 1992, has reopened with renewed energy under new ownership. Hemen “Amy” Solomon, an Ethiopia native who used to frequent the restaurant back in the 2000s, took over Bukom Cafe in February and is now steering one of D.C.'s original West African dining rooms into its next chapter.
Solomon is not from the Ghanaian community that originally shaped the restaurant, but she told AFRO News that she loves Nigerian culture and wants to nurture and grow the welcoming energy Bukom Cafe has always had. The restaurant's menu was originally inspired by the West African heritage of founding owner Justice Matey and his family, and it has served dishes from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal for more than three decades on 18th Street. Bukom Cafe was one of the first West African restaurants in Washington, D.C., and it still carries the physical markers of that history: an original kente-patterned mosaic bartop and Pan-African art by Cameroonian painter Shiri Achu remain part of the space, according to the same report.
Learning The Menu From Scratch
Solomon had not even tried jollof rice before taking ownership of the restaurant, per the AFRO News account, and she now practices making pounded yam by hand. Her favorites, she said, have become jollof rice, goat pepper soup and pounded yam — the last of which requires ingredients that are harder to source than those used in typical Ethiopian dishes she grew up with. She said she wants future owners to eventually receive Bukom Cafe in a better position than she found it, and she plans to keep West African cuisine at the core of the restaurant even as she imagines the food becoming broadly discussed among people of all nationalities, ages and backgrounds.
She is not alone in that goal. Nearby, restaurants like Elmina, Marcus DC and Dōgon are also working to draw in patrons unfamiliar with traditional African cuisine, part of a broader wave of upscale African restaurants in the city that can charge up to $100 for a single shareable dish. Other West African spots in D.C., including Sumah's West African Restaurant, BussDown D.C. and Ghana Cafe, round out a dining scene that has deep roots in the region.
Adams Morgan's African Food Legacy
Kristen Barden, executive director of the Adams Morgan Partnership Business Improvement District, said the neighborhood's global cuisine builds the community fabric, according to AFRO News. She added that legacy businesses have an important and evolving role in Adams Morgan, a corridor the BID oversees with clean teams, safety programs and economic promotion across Ward 1, per the Washington DC Economic Partnership. Adams Morgan has long been a launching point for some of the city's earliest African and Ethiopian restaurants, and it remains home to acclaimed venues like Tsehay Ethiopian Restaurant, which has earned Michelin Guide recognition for three consecutive years, according to GW Today.
The Washington metropolitan region has the second-largest sub-Saharan African-born immigrant population in the United States after New York City, the AFRO News report notes. That demographic weight is part of a larger national trend: the sub-Saharan African immigrant population in the U.S. grew to 2.5 million by 2024 after tripling since 2000, with 46% holding a bachelor's degree or higher, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Black immigrants are disproportionately impacted by escalated federal immigration enforcement, which has intensified since 2025 and has destabilized the D.C. dining industry more broadly, per the same account.
Reopening Amid Industry Headwinds
Solomon's reopening arrives as D.C. restaurateurs navigate a difficult stretch that includes the lingering effects of the pandemic, increased wages for tipped workers under Initiative 82, federal layoffs and a government shutdown. D.C. restaurants closed in record numbers in 2025, and a restaurant association survey found many reporting reduced profitability and lower sales even as conditions have begun to shift. The D.C. Council's July 2025 decision to reform Initiative 82 set the tipped cash minimum wage at 56% of the full minimum wage starting July 2026, capped at 75% by 2034, rather than eliminating the tip credit entirely as originally planned by 2027, according to Epstein Becker Green.
Under that framework, D.C.'s standard minimum wage rose to $18.40 an hour on July 1 — the highest in the country — while the mandatory tipped cash minimum sits at $10.30 an hour, with employers required to cover any gap so tipped workers reach the full $18.40, per Gratuity Solutions. The policy shift appears to be helping: citywide restaurant closures fell 43% year-over-year in the first two quarters of 2026, with closures among mid-priced restaurants dropping 54% over the same period, according to data from the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington reported by PoPville. Hoodline previously reported on that closure drop tied to Restaurant Week.
The restaurant and food service industry remains the largest private employer in the District, and Mayor Muriel Bowser noted in a March post on X that the number of D.C. restaurants holding Michelin stars rose from zero in 2025 to 21 in 2026. Still, West African restaurants specifically face difficulty finding knowledgeable staff and specific ingredients, a challenge Solomon has run into directly while learning to source goat pepper soup ingredients that are harder to find than those for more familiar Ethiopian dishes. For Solomon, the restaurant's role goes beyond the plate: she said Bukom Cafe became a home for diaspora and other community members, a legacy she now hopes to carry forward on 18th Street.
The AFRO News article on Bukom Cafe's return was created as part of the community journalism program operated by Humanities DC.
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