A tasty and empowering idea for Manchester, NH, refugees

My new friend Ali has a good idea.

"There should be a restaurant in Manchester where each day a people from different refugee community would be able to prepare and serve their native foods - Somalis on Monday, Bhutanese on Tuesday, etc.," he said.

Ali, an Iraqi refugee, is full of entrepreneurial ideas regarding how the refugees of Manchester, NH, might achieve a greater degree of economic self sufficiency. These ideas include breeding tropical fish and house plants to using worms to create compost made from food scraps collected from local restaurants. The compost would then be sold to local gardeners. But his tastiest idea, by far, is the refugee restaurant.

Seeing as how 60 percent of restaurants fail within five years, such an establishment could serve as an restaurant incubator that would allow budding restaurateurs to rent established restaurant space to test both their culinary and business management skills, as well as the demand for their cuisine in the diverse Manchester, NH, restaurant market.

I could see this type of restaurant working well as a social enterprise venture for a nonprofit like the International Institute of New Hampshire, which helps to resettle many of the refugees in Manchester, NH. Start-up costs would be high, I imagine, as one have to pay both rent as well as purchase commercial kitchen equipment, tables, silverware, etc. A full- or part-time manager would also be needed to oversee scheduling, make sure all employees have undergone the correct food preparation and storage training, etc.

Those who have already opened their own successful restaurants would be needed to provide technical advice and encouragement, while those budding entrepreneurs who decide to take the plunge and open their own restaurants would need start-up assistance, perhaps from the Amoskeag Business Incubator.

In short, it wouldn't be easy. But as both a diner and a supporter of our city's newcomers,  I think it's one I would like to see (and taste).

Who says Manchester has no culinary diversity?

About a month ago I was eating lunch with a group of co-conspirators in a Vietnamese place in Dorchester, Mass. I was midway through an unbelievably hot bowl of pho when one of my dining companions uttered something that nearly caused me to drop my spoon.

“Manchester needs some ethnic restaurants,” she said.

Truth be told, this woman wasn’t the first person I’ve heard bemoaning the city dining scene’s alleged lack of diversity. But the more I hear it, the more it annoys me. Granted, Manchester is not Boston and it’s certainly not New York. So yes: it’s much easier to find a grinder in this town than it is some decent falafel. But for a city of 100,000-plus, I think we’re doing pretty well.

By my count, there are more than a dozen ethnic cuisines represented among the city’s eateries, from the Quebeqois cuisine served up at Chez Vachon to the excellent Nepali cuisine at Café Momo to the mouth-watering paneer shahi korma at India Palace, Manchester’s culinary offerings span the globe.

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