Farah Rashid defines his job as “cook, chef, server, everything.”

It’s an apt phrasing. Rashid typically can be seen wearing down the carpet between the kitchen and the front seating area at Najah African Restaurant, 811 10th St. in downtown Greeley.

He takes customers’ orders, grabs the food from the fridge, cooks it up in the kitchen, delivers it to the table, stops to catch a glimpse of whatever soccer match happens to be on TV, tends to the cash register, and cleans up the table when customers leave.

“I love working here,” Rashid said of the hole-in-the-wall restaurant. “I get to eat here seven days a week.”

The store is owned by Rashid’s father, Abdi Warsame Abdirahman. who moved to the United States from Somalia in 2006. Abdirahman lived in Minnesota for a short time, but it wasn’t long before he was ready to try somewhere else.

“When I first came to the U.S., it was winter – January,”Abdirahman recalled. “It was so cold and there was so much snow. I said, ‘I have got to get out of here.'”

He moved to Greeley and worked at the JBS Swift beef plant, but he soon recognized a lack of grocery stores targeting the refugee population. It wasn’t long before he opened the 8th Avenue East Africa Halal Market.

“The business kind of got a little bigger and bigger,” said Rashid, who was still living in Minnesota at the time. “Then my dad called me and said, ‘We’re going to buy a restaurant.’ “

The eatery, which opened in 2012, specializes in East African and Middle Eastern cuisine.

“Most of the people that live in Greeley, they are always interested in having the goat meat and rice,” Rashid said. “Also the chicken shawarma. They always see it and ask what it is.”

If you wander into the restaurant for some authentic eats on a weekday and it seems a little empty, Rashid said it’s because their largest customer base is hard at work.

“On the weekdays, most of the Somalis work at the plant, so you won’t see them,” he said, guessing refugees make up about 60-70 percent of the restaurant’s customers. “They may come in just to grab some lunch to go. But on the weekends, it’s busy.”

A bustling diner is what Abdirahman loves to see, even if he has trouble putting it into words.

“Africa is one of the poorest continents in the world,” Rashid said. “Over there, life is very tough. The unemployment is very high. There is no work. So it’s kind of like my dad made his dream come true when he came here and started these businesses.”

Middle Eastern food

In the mid-1970s, Fahima Ahmad and her husband knew it was time to leave their home country of Afghanistan.

Militants attempted to overthrow the Afghan government in 1975. By 1978, tens of thousands of prisoners were executed, and large swaths of the nation were in open rebellion.

“We came to the United States at the end of ’79, when Russia came and everything was turned upside-down,” said Ahmad.

The couple moved to New York and opened a small pizza restaurant in Queens. Before long, they opened a second shop. But eventually they decided to share a taste of home with their diverse neighbors.

“In the end, we opened an Afghan restaurant,” Ahmad said. “It was a really popular location in Long Island. Then we had a chef who had some kind of family emergency and left.”

Finding a new chef wasn’t easy: Middle Eastern food takes a lot of time and preparation. With Ahmad raising a couple of children, they decided to sell the restaurant.

The family ended up in Denver, where they operated a highly regarded New York-style pizza restaurant. Before long, Ahmad’s husband decided to retire, and she started working in child care.

Then they got a phone call from a family friend who owned Rumi’s House of Kabob, 1116 9th St. in downtown Greeley. He had owned Rumi’s for five years, but he owned a few other businesses and Rumi’s needed more attention than he was able to provide. He knew Ahmad’s family had been in the food business for 30 years, and he asked them if they’d like to take over. They took over in January.

“We thought about it, and we said, ‘Yes, why not,’ ” Ahmad said, again able to share a taste of home with her neighbors. “Gradually, probably, we will add a couple of Afghan dishes, but we won’t change anything that’s already there.”

For almost five years, the diner has been operating out of a former home that was built more than 100 years ago. The building blends in with the historic homes that surround it on 9th Street, making it easy to pass over. But stop in and the authentic cuisine won’t disappoint, Ahmad said.

“This is our new experience with Middle Eastern food, which is very close to Afghan, Iranian, Arabic, Turkish food,” she said. “Everybody’s favorites are kabobs and chicken curry, but the lamb shank is actually the top seller. The lamb shank cooks for eight hours. It’s very tender, very delicious, very good. Everybody has their own favorite in this menu.”

Ahmad and her family have been operating the restaurant for about a month now, and she said she’s impressed with the response from Greeley’s residents.

“They are really friendly people,” she said. “They love food, and they know good food.”

Interacting and speaking with customers is Ahmad’s primary duty, and her husband came out of retirement to help out with various parts of the business. Her daughter-in-law was put to work in the kitchen as well.

“Here, the whole family can work,” Ahmad said. “So we’re working as a family business, which is really, really nice.”

Ahmad also occasionally occupies the kitchen to bake almond cookies, the restaurant’s most popular dessert.

“Every day I bake them fresh,” she said with a smile, “and they go in half a day.”