Adulis Coffee & Roastery
Credit: Adulis Coffee & Roastery
Tibs Firfir at Adulis Coffee & Roastery
Credit: Adulis Coffee & Roastery
BY NEVIN MARTELL
SILVER SPRING, AFRICAN FLAVORS
How the African diaspora expanded beyond Washington, creating a new, broader cultural center in suburban Maryland.
Drive north on Georgia Avenue and Washington gradually changes around you. Howard University gives way to Columbia Heights, Petworth, Brightwood, and Takoma before the District disappears in the rearview mirror and Silver Spring, Maryland, takes its place.
The border itself is easy to miss. The cultural shift is harder to overlook.
Along Georgia Avenue and the streets surrounding downtown Silver Spring, restaurants, coffeehouses, markets and businesses reflect communities with roots thousands of miles away. Ethiopian coffee roasts nearby. Injera arrives beneath platters of richly spiced stews. Nigerian kitchens serve jollof rice and egusi, while Senegalese cooks grill lamb dibi and fry savory fataya.
Washington may have been the historic center of the region’ s African immigrant story, but increasingly, its next chapters are being written in Montgomery County.
FLYWASHINGTON. COM 34 AUTUMN / WINTER 2026