There is a particular kind of moment that happens at every DMV African food truck stop. Someone in a business suit walks up with no idea what to order. Someone next to them in line turns and says, just get the jollof. The first person gets the jollof. The first person looks at the plate, takes one bite, and never goes back to the sandwich cart.
That moment is happening more and more across Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, and the numbers behind it are not small. After years of being underrepresented in the U.S. dining scene, African cuisine is finally stepping into the spotlight, thanks to a new generation of chefs and culinary experts who are sharing its vibrant flavors with the world, with fast casual restaurants and food trucks leading the charge.
The DMV’s African food truck scene is not just growing. It is evolving in a specific direction: from scrappy community-serving operations to scalable, brand-aware, media-covered concepts that are introducing West African street food to audiences far beyond the diaspora. And the founders doing this are a new generation of African immigrant entrepreneurs who grew up between two continents, understand both markets, and are building something that neither market has fully seen before.
Here is who is leading it and where the scene is going.
The Pioneer: Come’Chop DC and the Truck That Started It All
Every scene has an origin story, and for West African food trucks in Washington D.C., it starts with Come’Chop.
Come’Chop, meaning “Come Eat” in West African pidgin English, built its identity as the DMV’s first West African food truck, offering authentic West African comfort food with a Nigerian flair. Using nothing but the finest farm-fresh and when possible locally sourced ingredients and healthy oils, the truck prepared everything fresh every day, with a mission that what did not sell that day went to feed the local hungry, a principle that had been solidly in place since the beginning.
The truck’s menu centered on jollof rice with chicken or fish, coconut rice, and the meat pie that became a signature item: hot, well-seasoned, spicy, and rich, baked to order in a flakey, crispy, savory crust with ground beef, carrots, potato, onion, and West African spices.
When it was operating in the city, Come’Chop parked at Farragut Square and quickly drew attention. One early reviewer described just stumbling on it and being blown away, ordering the jollof rice with fish and adding a meat pie, calling the food amazing.
Come’Chop is no longer on the road in the same capacity, having gone on pause since the pandemic. But its significance to the DMV African food truck story is real. It was the first. It proved there was a market, that non-Africans would stop at a truck serving jollof, that West African comfort food translated to the street food format, and that the DMV’s office lunch crowd was ready for something other than gyros and tacos on their midday break.
Every African food truck operating in the DMV today is building on what Come’Chop proved first.
Sweet Sweet Kitchen: From One Truck to Three Brick and Mortar Locations
The most compelling food truck origin-to-empire story in the DMV’s African food scene belongs to Chef Mosada and Sweet Sweet Kitchen, and it is the kind of story that deserves to be told in full.
Originally from Sierra Leone and migrating to the United States in 2002, Chef Mosada started cooking from home as a way to support his family. That same home cooking drive eventually carried over to the love behind Sweet Sweet Kitchen, which he built on the principle that good food tastes better when cooked like it is at home. Meals are prepared every day in a pot, with no shortcuts and straightforward deliciousness as the only standard.
Sweet Sweet Kitchen specializes in Jamaican and Sierra Leonean cuisine. What started as a food truck became a first brick-and-mortar location at 904 Bonifant Street in Silver Spring in 2021. Chef Mosada later expanded to the District, opening a new location in the H Street NE corridor in 2022, then a second D.C. location on Minnesota Avenue SE in 2024.
Three locations. Started with a truck. No venture capital. No culinary school pedigree. Just a Sierra Leonean chef who understood that the DMV was hungry for food that actually tasted like what West African home cooking is supposed to taste like, and who had the discipline to build one location at a time until the community made him grow.
Customers who have eaten at Sweet Sweet Kitchen describe the experience as a culinary tour through all the dishes of Sierra Leone and Jamaica, with chefs cooking fresh stews and curries so every customer gets the best. The oxtail, curry goat, jerk chicken, and jollof rice all draw consistent praise, with reviewers frequently noting the generous portions, the authentic seasoning, and the warmth of the service.
The expansion is not without current challenges. Chef Mosada told WUSA9 that when construction for the Silver Spring Library station on the Purple Line first began near the Bonifant Street location, he was looking forward to seeing more customers. However, as construction dragged on, he could only watch as fewer customers walked through the door. He has since relocated to a new space ahead of the Purple Line’s projected 2027 opening, and told reporters that if the construction continues over the next three years, a lot of businesses in that corridor are going to be at risk.
Chef Mosada’s story is the food truck arc in its most complete form: truck to restaurant, local to regional, one nationality’s comfort food to the whole city’s table. He is also working on a new Baltimore restaurant called Nem Nem, suggesting the expansion is far from over.
Locations: Silver Spring, H Street NE Washington D.C., Minnesota Avenue SE Washington D.C. Website: sweetsweetkitchen.com Best for: Sierra Leonean and Jamaican fusion, oxtail, curry goat, jollof rice, authentic home-style cooking
Spice Kitchen West African Grill: The Nigerian PG County Kid Who Wants to Be Chipotle
Of all the African food entrepreneurs operating in the DMV right now, Olumide Shokunbi may have the most explicit and unapologetic mainstream ambition.
Prince George’s County native Olumide Shokunbi, a first-generation Nigerian-American, devised the concept for Spice Kitchen West African Grill because he wanted to change the way people thought about African food. Shokunbi first secured a space for his ghost kitchen in Mess Hall, a culinary incubator space in D.C., in 2020. He started as a ghost kitchen because it allowed him to pivot during the pandemic without the overhead risk of a food truck or brick and mortar location.
Good companies were using a lot of TikTok and Instagram, Shokunbi said, so he got on it and pushed hard, delivering great food and great service while building an audience online. Supply chain issues hit hard early on, but the business survived and evolved.
The food truck came next, and then the restaurants. Shokunbi opened a food truck that parked primarily in Bowie, a brick-and-mortar in Hyattsville in 2024, and a Baltimore Canton location at the end of 2025. Before the Canton location opened, he did a number of pop-ups, notably at Remington’s R. House and as part of the DMV’s Black Restaurant Week.
The food centers around suya, the nut-based spice blend that is sprinkled on grilled meat and is a very popular street food in West Africa, Nigeria specifically. At Spice Kitchen, suya comes in iterations of chicken, steak, salmon, lamb chops, and shrimp, all served alongside jollof rice, rice and stew, and plantains.
Shokunbi said his favorite thing to hear is from someone who says they have never had West African or African food before and did not know it tasted like this. That reaction, he said, is exactly what he is going for.
Shokunbi hopes Spice Kitchen West African Grill will become the Chipotle of West African food. That is not a throwaway line from a nervous founder hedging his ambition. It is a founder from PG County who grew up eating this food, ran a Chipotle in college, understood the fast casual model from the inside, and decided the only thing missing was an African version of it. He is building that version, one location at a time, starting from his home county.
Food Truck: Bowie, Maryland (PG County) Hyattsville Location: 3124 Queens Chapel Road, Hyattsville, MD 20782 Phone: (240) 667-2198 Website: spicekitchengrill.com Best for: Suya in every form, jollof rice, plantains, West African fast casual dining
Jollof Bowl: The Viral “African Chipotle” That Started in Baltimore
While Jollof Bowl is based in Baltimore rather than the DMV’s core, it is impossible to tell the story of the African food truck and fast casual movement in this region without including it. The founders’ story, the viral moment, and the ambition behind the brand are all directly relevant to what is happening across the DMV food scene.
Andrea Kamara-Oketunji, who grew up in a Liberian family in Rhode Island, and her husband Lekan Oketunji, born to a Nigerian family, built Jollof Bowl as a fast casual food brand to introduce West African cuisine to the mainstream in a modern, accessible, and culturally authentic way. Their menu centers on bold, flavor-forward bowls built around jollof rice and suya, served through a build-your-own model inspired by Chipotle and CAVA but rooted deeply in African culture and storytelling.
The food sparked praise from across the country, with one Instagram video deeming it the viral African Chipotle and drawing over 1.2 million views. Kamara-Oketunji said the interest pushed her to take control of the narrative, posting videos with her husband explaining their story and culture, and they started playing Nigerian music at the stall.
The Baltimore Banner described Jollof Bowl as a franchise-ready concept built for scale to disrupt the quick-service space. The concept emerged from a business Kamara-Oketunji had operated in Liberia and Nigeria before pivoting post-pandemic and launching in Baltimore in 2025. They have already built a staff of 24 and developed internal training under a program called Jollof University.
As Lekan Oketunji put it: jollof rice is like the pizza of West Africa, and just as pizza opened a door for Italian food to reach every American table, jollof can do the same for West African cuisine.
The success of Jollof Bowl signals exactly where the DMV African food scene is headed: toward scalable, mainstream-accessible, culturally proud concepts that do not compromise on authenticity in order to grow.
Location: Baltimore, Maryland (DMV corridor) Website: Follow Jollof Bowl on Instagram for current locations
Dawa at Elmina: Where a Top Chef Star Brings West African Food to D.C.’s 14th Street
The food truck and fast casual movement is creating one kind of access. But at the other end of the spectrum, a Ghanaian-American Top Chef star is doing something different on 14th Street NW.
Dawa is a takeout-only concept from chef and Top Chef star Eric Adjepong, located inside Elmina at 2208 14th Street NW. It offers modern West African dishes including suya-crusted short rib over jollof rice, a West African ramen combining ramen noodles with West African pepper soup consommé, tamarind-glazed confit duck with smoked jollof rice and toasted tomato salad, and the Ghanaian staple Red Red made with stewed black-eyed peas, sweet plantains, and creamy avocado.
Adjepong is a Top Chef finalist and the author of Ghana to the World, a cookbook of recipes and stories that look forward while honoring the past. He is among a generation of chefs who are championing African cuisine at the level of fine dining and elevated fast casual simultaneously.
Dawa is not a food truck, but it occupies the same philosophical space: making West African food accessible in a format that removes the barrier of a full sit-down restaurant experience. The takeout-only model, the bold modern menu, and the 14th Street location place it directly in D.C.’s most active dining corridor, reaching a mainstream audience that might never have found its way to a traditional West African restaurant.
The distance between Come’Chop parking at Farragut Square with a jollof bowl for nine dollars and Adjepong serving suya short rib ramen on 14th Street NW is not a contradiction. It is the full arc of what is happening to African food in the DMV right now.
Location: 2208 14th Street NW, Washington D.C. (inside Elmina) Best for: Elevated modern West African cuisine, takeout format, adventurous DMV food lovers
Why the DMV Is the Perfect Incubator for This Movement
The growth of the African food truck and fast casual scene in the DMV is not random. It is the product of several forces that make this region uniquely suited to what these founders are building.
The first is demographic. The DMV is home to one of the most concentrated African immigrant communities in the United States, with Prince George’s County and Montgomery County both ranking in the top five nationally for sub-Saharan African immigrants. That community creates a guaranteed customer base for authentic African food, a built-in audience that will drive 40 minutes for the right pepper soup.
The second is cultural crossover. Washington D.C. is one of the most internationally diverse cities in America, with embassy communities, international organization workers, and a cosmopolitan professional class that actively seeks out unfamiliar food. The Farragut Square lunch crowd that Come’Chop served is exactly the audience that tries something new, tells their coworkers, and builds a following.
The third is proximity to entrepreneurial infrastructure. Nuli’s founder, one of the Nigerian food entrepreneurs operating in D.C., noted that the Washington DC Economic Partnership was super helpful in navigating sourcing locations and state licensing and regulatory requirements, and that the 2024 SelectUSA Investment Summit exposed her to a network of economic development agencies from all states and territories that she could not have accessed from a different city.
And the fourth is momentum. Every successful African food concept in the DMV makes the next one easier to open, fund, and legitimize. Sweet Sweet Kitchen’s three locations make it easier for Spice Kitchen to pitch a new Baltimore landlord. Jollof Bowl’s viral moment makes it easier for a new food truck founder in Hyattsville to tell investors that the market is real.
The scene is feeding itself.
What Is Coming Next
The DMV African food truck and fast casual movement is in the middle of its growth phase, not at the beginning and not at the peak. The brands that are winning right now are figuring out the model: how to maintain authentic flavor at volume, how to build a customer base beyond the diaspora, how to use social media to build national visibility from a local truck, and how to turn one truck into one restaurant into a regional chain.
The next generation is already watching and building. In PG County, in Hyattsville, in Silver Spring, and in the food incubators around D.C., there are founders who have seen what Shokunbi built, what Chef Mosada built, and what Jollof Bowl built, and are building the next version.
African food in the DMV is not having a moment. It is having a movement. And the truck parked outside your office building right now might be how it reaches you.