Meet Our Vendors: Geni’s Ethiopian Corner

“Have you ever had Ethiopian food?” Jonathan Sinton asks farmers market customers as he hands them a sample of injera, or Ethiopian spongy flatbread. 70% of them say no, they haven’t, or say that they’ve tried it once. Once they try the sample, however, the food speaks for itself.  

Meeraf and Jonathan Sinton started their business, Geni’s Ethiopian Corner, in 2018. The company was born from their love of food, and their observation that African cuisine was not accessible to the majority of people in Seattle. Meeraf is from Addis Abiba, Ethiopia, and she is a passionate cook who clearly cares about the quality of every dish she makes. They wanted to bring Ethiopian food to the people, instead of waiting for people to seek it out for themselves.  

Once they began selling their food at the Lake City Farmers Market, business quickly took off. People were so excited to try some new, delicious food. With many gluten-free, vegan, and vegetarian options, Geni’s has something for everyone and attracted a following of people who were looking for healthy and delicious food that was accessible to them.  

The business quickly expanded, and they were soon selling at many farmers markets and corporate offices all over Seattle. In 2019, they partnered with Microsoft and began serving their food on the Microsoft campus. Meeraf says that they were feeding 400-800 people every day.  

When the pandemic hit, it hit hard. All of the corporate offices they had been serving at shifted to remote work, and the farmers markets stopped allowing prepared food in the markets. Jonathan and Meeraf had to get creative. They started offering special pick-up meals, where they were able to experiment with different African cuisines beyond Ethiopian, including West African, Mozambican, Moroccan, Nigerian, and Egyptian. These meals were extremely successful, and Geni’s was able to survive until markets allowed hot foods, and some larger catering orders started coming back.  

Recently, Jonathan and Meeraf have begun expanding their business with their “Lands of Origin” gift boxes. The boxes include spices, tools, and recipes so that anyone can learn to cook Ethiopian food at home. They were inspired to create the gift boxes after noticing how difficult it was to source ingredients for some of their meals. Jonathan recalls calling Meeraf on FaceTime and pointing her towards tupperware with handwritten Amharic so that he could try to figure out what ingredients to get.  

Most grocery stores have small sections for other cuisines, but no major grocery store in Seattle has an African section. Their dream is to someday make African cuisine and flavors accessible for anyone to try. Africa is a huge, diverse continent. In Ethiopia alone, there are 84 languages spoken, and different cultures, food, and clothing that goes with each. Meeraf hopes to be the voice for the unique and delicious flavors.