I stopped in here today and sampled the food and atmosphere. The owner (Tina, obviously) is one of the sweetest people I've ever met. The restaurant is small and cozy and eclectically decorated.
The food - now, I've never really eaten Ethiopian food. Tina had to kind of give me a quick instruction on it. She put the plate down and my first instinct was to take a photo (and now I wish I had) - it was beautiful. She explained that she makes her own bread - it's a special sort of bread that's almost like a cross between pancake and a European fluffy/spongy crumpet. Next to it is a smaller plate filled with sauce and meat and vegetables.
It looked a little messy, so I looked around for silverware. Silver-where? What? No silverware? I'm sure she had some, but she said I should eat with my fingers and told me how it works - using the bread to scoop up the meat and sauce. I had a bite of spicy chicken - OMG so good! Then I tried the ground beef - also OMG amazing!
I took some home for my girlfriend who didn't even wait until I got inside the house - she met me in the garage and scarfed down a bunch of it. She also thought it was delicious. We're definitely going to have dinner here soon.
I noticed a bunch of low reviews here and for the most part they are from people who didn't actually eat there or that bought an online coupon deal. I'm not going to bad mouth any daily deal site (sometimes they can help put a business on the map), but I can tell you that for a small business like this, it can be financially devastating doing a coupon or daily deal like this.
Restaurant owners are asked to sell something for half price and then only get to keep half of that. It's safe to assume they lose money every time they do one. Also, they don't see any money from it for months. Also, the coupon customers often only show up someplace when there's a coupon involved. Restaurant owners aren't coached on how to get these customers to come back in to pay full price.
And then to try to use an expired coupon and trash a tiny independent restaurant online when they won't accept it anymore - that's even more bad news for the restaurant owner. It just doesn't seem fair. I don't know. It seems like the opposite of supporting local to me.
This restaurant is cute and charming and the owner is awesome. The food is incredible, and I'm a super picky eater who won't eat anything. I'm a fan of Ethiopian now. Can't wait to go back.