Where Simileoluwa Adebajo Finds Community In San Francisco
"Bissap Baobab is a Senegalese restaurant in the Mission that has persevered through a lot of adversity within the past two years. In 2019, the owner, Marco, was arrested based on some unfounded claims about his immigration status. And he basically had his restaurant shut down for almost the whole year. He also lost the club, which was attached to the restaurant, due to these fallacious claims laid against him. Baobab was such a huge melting pot of West African culture in San Francisco. When I first moved here from Lagos in 2016, I was always at Baobab, because they would play Senegalese music, Nigerian music, Ghanian music - and it just felt like home away from home. And so it was so heartbreaking to see him go through that. But he was able to come back. Now he only owns 40% of the space he owned before - he had to sell off the rest of it to be able to pay his legal fees due to that battle. But he’s back and he’s doing takeout and delivery and also working on the nonprofit program which I’m working on as well, the SF New Deal. And the food is amazing. Try the chicken yassa - they’ll do it with fried plantains as well, which is delicious. I love anything with fried plantains." - simileoluwa adebajo 1
