Tucson’s first international dining and entertainment district will open next month along a stretch of East Broadway that’s still recovering from the city’s years-long road-widening project.
The first phase of the Afro-centric Z Street, which stretches from the corner of Broadway and Treat Avenue to Rocco’s Little Chicago, includes the expansion of Zemam’s Ethiopian Cuisine restaurant at 2731 E. Broadway and a new international bar, Zerai’s, next door at 2725 E. Broadway. The long-vacant Shakey’s Pizzeria building next door to Rocco’s was torn down and paved over to provide parking.
The second phase, set to open later this year, will include Zidamo coffee house, a collaboration with Savaya Coffee going into the long-vacant Flanagan’s Celtic Corner gift shop at 2719 E. Broadway, and space for international food trucks and carts.
“I want all my customers to have a good time and enjoy all we have to offer to experience the African culture,” said Zemam’s chef-owner Amanuel Gebremariam, who came up with the idea for Z Street not long after the neighboring Insurance House closed early in the pandemic.
The project lies within the Rio Nuevo Sunshine Mile from South Country Club Road to North Euclid Avenue on Broadway that was created after the city deeded Rio Nuevo 39 midcentury residential and retail properties. The properties, which included the Solot Plaza and the Friedman and Bungalow blocks, were abandoned during the years-long road-widening project.
When Gebremariam and his sons/partners Lucas and Noah approached Rio Nuevo in 2021 with their plans for Z Street, the board was excited, said Chairman Fletcher McCusker. The tax-revenue funding redevelopment arm kicked in $500,000 for the project, initially estimated at $800,000.
“All of this is really creative,” he said. “We don’t know of anything else that is internationally themed. It’s basically an Ethiopian block.”
The cornerstone of the project is the rebirth of Zemam’s, which has been closed since early 2021. Gebremariam said he closed not so much due to COVID-19 but more because of the ongoing road construction.
“They were digging everywhere in front of the restaurant,” he recalled. “There wasn’t anywhere customers could come in and out.”
Gebremariam thought he would reopen in a few months.
A few months turned into years.
“It lasted so long,” he said. “Thank God we had the Speedway location (Zemam’s Too at 119 E. Speedway) to earn some money otherwise we could have gone out of business.”
(The family closed the Speedway location on March 17, saying it was impossible to find enough staff for both restaurants.)
With the original restaurant closed, the Gebremariams started imagining what Z Street would look like. Lucas envisioned that flatscreens in the Zeria’s would broadcast international sports during the day and on weekends, they would recreate the global music dance parties they held for several years at Zemam’s Too.
Although it’s months down the road, Savaya already has agreed to create a special roast for Zidamo with beans imported from the coffee-rich Sidamo Province in the senior Gebremariam’s native Ethiopia.
But the first thing on everyone’s agenda: expanding the restaurant that Gebremariam opened in 1993.
Gebremariam had no real business plan or cooking experience when he announced to his family that he was going to open an Ethiopian restaurant “and Tucson was going to love it,” son Lucas recalled.
Gebremariam came to the U.S. in the early 1980s as an Ethiopian refugee. After he earned a chemistry degree from the University of Maryland, he went to work for the federal government before getting a job with a company that built planes. That job landed him in Tucson several years later and a disagreement with his boss landed him in the restaurant business.
“He came home from work and said, ‘I quit my job and I’m going to open an Ethiopian restaurant’,” Lucas said, recalling childhood memories of piling into the family’s car and driving his dad to work before school.
Named after his mother, Zemam’s had just four tables tucked into small alcoves near the front door; his father-in-law lived in the rest of the house. The kitchen was no bigger than a primary suite bathroom, equipped with a refrigerator, stove top and a hot food table. Customers parked along Treat Avenue or in the two or three parking spots in front of the restaurant.
The restaurant quickly found a loyal audience for the food Gebremariam he recreated from recipes handed down by his mother and fellow Ethiopian refugees in Tucson.
When they reopen next month, Gebremariam will be cooking in a kitchen three times the size of the original and outfitted with updated appliances, including a commercial refrigerator, ice machine and prep tables. A former closet has been converted into a shelf-lined pantry.
Diners will have their choice of 28 tables set up in little nooks and corners created when Gebremariam tore down walls and created arches where doors had been.
The family had hoped to reopen the restaurant last year, but construction delays and obstacles slowed things down and pushed up the costs. The family invested nearly $400,000 of their own money into the project, Gebremariam said. In addition to its initial $500,000 investment, Rio Nuevo kicked in $300,000 more to bring the project to the finish line, McCusker said.
“We thought it was a really important cultural opportunity,” he said. “We don’t know of anything else that is internationally themed. Zemam’s is one of those have-to-go to restaurants in Arizona and to bring back them on Broadway, keep Rocco’s on Broadway, it is really cool.”
Z Street is the first of several redevelopment projects to open in the Sunshine Mile district, although McCusker said there are a number of new restaurants and retail projects in the works.
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