Beltsville’s Swahili Village’s New Swank DC Eatery Hit Hard by Pandemic

Photo courtesy of Swahili Village

A beloved Route 1 restaurant’s big expansion to D.C. has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

The owner of Swahili Village, which specializes in Kenyan cuisine and first began in College Park in 2009 before moving to Beltsville in 2016, opened a bigger and more upscale sister location downtown earlier this year in the District, but was shut down just 10 days later by pandemic restrictions. It’s one of D.C.’s only black-owned fine dining restaurants and among the few serving upscale African cuisine.

After reopening in June, the D.C. Swahili Village restaurant has seen much lower business than usual, with happy hour and lunch crowds dramatically reduced due to people working from home, while the downstairs dining area has scared off potential customers who are avoiding eating indoors.

“Unless we get that really strong indoor dining, we were not built for just takeout. That restaurant is a fine-dining space where people come to enjoy the experience, the food, the music, the culture,” owner Kevin Onyona, who is an immigrant from Kenya, told the Washingtonian. “If this continues for another three or four months, I don’t think we’ll make it.”

The Beltsville location at 10800 Rhode Island Avenue, is doing better because it was able to qualify for a Paycheck Protection Program loan, and Onyona still plans another location in New Jersey next summer.

Both the Beltsville and D.C. locations of Swahili Village are open for in-house dining and you can also find them on UberEats, DoorDash, Postmates and GrubHub.

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