The mural is the first thing you notice at Z Zoul in the Tenderloin. On the back wall, a pensive woman enfolded in a flowing blue dress sews together a swatch of green fabric that has been ripped in two. An Arabic phrase, repeated in both faint and bold lettering, hovers around her like a swarm of moths.

Once owner Aref Elgaali explains its meaning, the mural leaves the restaurant with you, too. The woman, who resembles Elgaali’s mother but is not her, is mending a map of his birth country, Sudan, from which South Sudan seceded seven years ago. The phrase translates as “All are one.” The mural is a prayer for unity, one the refugee spends his days contemplating from behind the counter.

Z Zoul, which opened in February, may be the Bay Area’s only Sudanese restaurant. While its owner is making repairs and meeting with agencies, it is still finding its way — a place to stop for spiced coffee or a dish called foul masalah. Yet it’s also a sign that the Tenderloin remains one of the few spots in San Francisco where a new immigrant, idealistic and impatient to work, can go into business for himself.

“It would take five or six days to tell my story,” Elgaali says.

In fact, it takes two visits for the short version to come out. Tall and expansive, Elgaali speaks in looping anecdotes, his sentences sprouting improbable, writerly metaphors. Exiled from Sudan, educated in India and Egypt, Elgaali spent most of his life in Saudi Arabia. Financially, his life there was great: As a financier for a market research company, he earned enough to live in a neighborhood equivalent to Pacific Heights. His children were attended by their own maid and schooled in English.

But after 40 years, Saudi Arabia still treated the Sudanese expat like a temporary visitor who had to apply for residency every year. He didn’t want his children to spend their entire lives in limbo. He wanted them to have a future, not just a comfortable present.

So in March 2016, Elgaali and two siblings joined three more of their brothers and sisters who had already emigrated to California. “I decided to start over again,” he says. “I’m a guy who likes adventures.” He told his kids they would visit Disneyland.

Adventure as a refugee meant giving up his housing, job and privacy — for the first few months, 20 family members shared a five-bedroom house in Bay Point in the far reaches of Contra Costa County — and, for a spell, his sense of purpose. While waiting for the provisional asylum status that would allow him to work, all he had to do was think and plan. Then a friend helped him buy a car.

Driving for Lyft familiarized him with the city of San Francisco. The former researcher also designed a study to familiarize himself with San Franciscans. He asked each of his riders five questions: Where did you move here from? How long have you lived here? How do you live in the most expensive place in the United States? What is the education system like here? And what neighborhood should I settle in?

The subjects wanted to quiz the researcher, too. “People were always asking, ‘Where is your food?’” Elgaali says. “This place is about culture,” he realized. Everyone’s culture, that is, except his.

The idea to open a Sudanese restaurant took hold. In November, Elgaali met Abdul Al-Rammah, owner of the Tenderloin’s Yemen Kitchen, who had taken over the lease for a nearby space in a Mercy Housing building before having second thoughts.

No one had answered the fifth question in Elgaali’s Lyft survey with a recommendation for the Tenderloin. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yet here was an opportunity that spoke to his love of cooking for friends and his need for a mission in this new place.

And so, aided by his brother Mohannad, he now spends six days a week on one of the poorest blocks of Eddy, preparing ta’amia (Sudanese falafel) and shawarma for lunch and dinner, stocking the pastry case with Yemeni sweets to lure in Arabic-speaking customers, and brewing jabana — Sudanese coffee — to convert the uninitiated.

Americans will readily order falafel and shawarma, he quickly discovered. Stews, they might not. After throwing away too much food, he has tucked away the most typical Sudanese dishes as daily specials. On weekends, his sister-in-law produces a stack of giant, translucent crepes, called kisra. To accompany the flatbread, he or his wife cook theelj — a smooth, glossy stew of pureed spinach — or tagaliya, a sauce of finely ground beef thickened with dried okra powder.

Elgaali shows me how to crumple up the kisra in a bowl and drizzle one of the stews over the top, plucking some chopped chile relish from a side dish to sprinkle over it. He wonders if I find it gross to mash the bread and stew together with our fingers to eat. To the contrary: In three visits to Z Zoul, they are the best dishes I’ve tasted.

America’s Twitter-speed rhythms have not yet taken hold at Z Zoul. Lunch may take a half-hour to prepare. He brews each cup of jabana to order with cardamom and dried ginger, just like his grandmother taught him, spooning sugar into the cup before pouring the coffee into it. The coffee beans are grown near an Ethiopian camp for Sudanese refugees and sold by a nonprofit that donates 80 percent of the proceeds. Another mission to undertake.

What a strange country, that could be so rich and let so many people beg on the street, he often marvels as he stands outside smoking. Yet Elgaali joins the neighborhood as one of its own, too, signaling greetings to people who pass by, adding a few sentences to a running conversation, feeding those who beg. “I do not feel like a stranger here,” says the man in permanent exile.

Elgaali has also decided the Tenderloin is safer than people realize. No one hassles him, even late at night. He has told the city representatives who offer help that he wants to be a light on the block. Maybe a business two doors down can become another light, and others will flare up and down the block. Maybe, all together, they can restore the Tenderloin’s luster.

First, though, the customers have to find him.

Three things to know

Where to find it: Z Zoul Cafe, 295 Eddy St. (at Taylor Street), San Francisco; (415) 757-0187 , http://z-zoul-cafe.business.site. Open lunch-dinner, Tuesday-Sunday.

Budget your time: Five minutes for coffee, an hour for lunch.

What to get: Besides the jabana coffee ($3), which is excellent, the eggplant salad with yogurt ($6.35) and foul masalah ($8.50); on the weekends, ask for the specials with kisra ($11.80) and pepper relish.