Adanech Asghedom, owner of Ada’s Gojjo in Asbury Park, will open a second restaurant in the city’s downtown in 2025.
Her new venture will be a vegan Ethiopian restaurant at 721 Cookman Ave., a space previously occupied by Heaven Art & Antiques. Asghedom purchased the building in summer 2024 and plans to begin construction in January.
Her existing restaurant on Memorial Drive is an Ethiopian and Dominican restaurant with many vegan customers, Asghedom said.
“(I thought) if I separated it more, it’s going to be good. So I decided to do (the new restaurant) only vegan,” she said.
Injera, a spongy flatbread, is used as both a bread and a utensil in Ethiopia. Find it at Ada’s Gojjo in Asbury Park.
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Vegan options at Ada’s Gojjo include empanadas, yucca cakes, mofongo, salads, and more than half a dozen entrées like kik alitcha, a dish of turmeric-spiced split yellow peas; atakilt wot, made of potatoes, carrots and green beans with garlic and onion; and tikil gomen, made with cabbage, onion, ginger and garlic in turmeric sauce. The latter are served with injera, a spongy flatbread used for scooping.
“Each plate has its own flavors, everything’s from scratch,” said Asghedom, who cooks with herbs and spices her mother brings from her native Ethiopia. “Everything’s done by hand. That’s where the flavor comes.”
Asghedom originally opened her restaurant as Ada’s Latin Flavor in Long Branch. She ran that restaurant for nearly a decade before moving to Asbury Park in 2018, where a larger restaurant meant she could accommodate more diners.
The original restaurant had about a dozen tables, “and a lot of people (were) waiting for me outside in the cold and the [heat], so I decided it’s a better place,” she told The Asbury Park Press at the time.
Go: Ada’s Gojjo is currently open at 1301 Memorial Drive; 732-222-5005, adagojjo.com.
Sarah Griesemer joined the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey in 2003 and has been writing all things food since 2014. Send restaurant tips to [email protected], follow on Instagram at Jersey Shore Eats and subscribe to her weekly newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Ada’s Gojjo to open vegan restaurant in Asbury Park
