Cedar-Riverside, the neighbourhood immediately south of downtown near the University of Minnesota West Bank campus, is the centre of the largest Somali diaspora community in the United States — a population that arrived following the collapse of the Somali state in the early 1990s. The commercial strip on Cedar Avenue between Franklin and Riverside has become one of the most concentrated Somali commercial districts outside East Africa.
The restaurants here serve Somali staples: canjeero (Somali flatbread similar to Ethiopian injera), suugo suqaar (pasta with spiced meat sauce — a legacy of the Italian colonial period in Somalia), rice dishes with slow-cooked goat, and the strong, cardamom-spiced tea called shaah. Most restaurants are cash-only and unlicensed for alcohol. This is some of the least expensive and most distinctive eating in Minneapolis.