Spokane boasts a diverse array of international cuisines and communities hungry for ingredients primarily found overseas and occasionally at stores hundreds of miles away in Seattle or Portland.
That's what Sami Mushwani found after leaving Afghanistan in 2015 and moving to Spokane with his family. Foods and spices vital to many Afghan meals were impossible to find on local shelves, which is why Mushwani decided to open Afghani Grocery Store on North Monroe Street about two months ago.
"We had no Afghani grocery store, so that's why I decided to open a grocery store to make it easy for our people, and show our food and grocery to the American people," Mushwani says.
Entering the store, customers are greeted by shelves of housewares, such as dining sets with white, gold and black detail, teapots, ornamented serving trays, pots and pans, and everyday household necessities. To the left of the door are racks of brightly colored clothes, rugs adorned with intricate designs, and strands of shining beads. Like many of the foods and spices in the store, Mushwani says, these items common to Afghan culture are difficult to find in the Spokane area.
Afghani Grocery Store also sells other household items such as cleaning supplies, paper towels and soap.
After coming to Spokane, Mushwani says he often couldn't find a variety of spices and ingredients central to many Middle Eastern dishes — and many other Afghan residents here told him they had the same complaint.
"We'd go to the store and couldn't find what we need," he says.
Afghani Grocery Store boasts a substantial collection of spices. In fact, Mushwani says he stocks more than 100 spices, including those used in Middle Eastern dishes like shawarma, biryani and kabuli pulao, the national dish of Afghanistan made from steamed rice, raisins, carrots and beef or lamb.
The store also carries bulk items, from lentils to rice to chickpeas, as well as a variety of flours and baking ingredients. The walls are lined with fridges of fresh produce, Middle Eastern soft drinks and other imported beverages not sold elsewhere in the region.
Afghani Grocery Store stocks an array of Middle Eastern desserts, such as gulab jamun, a small fried, doughy dessert with a raisin-like spiced flavor that's made with ghee, flour, milk and khoya, a common base ingredient in a variety of Indian sweets. It's traditionally served with a sweet sauce or rose syrup.
There's also different types of murabba, a sweet preserve of candied fruits and sometimes even vegetables like carrots. One aisle is filled with cookies and baked goods, such as cumin-flavored zeera biscuits, and sooji biscuits, which are soft, sweet and salty. Snacks and chips include pani puri, a popular Indian street food.
The Afghani Grocery Store imports many of its inventory from wholesalers in Seattle and California, as well directly from Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.
Among the many items not found at other grocery stores in the area, Afghani Grocery Store also sells halal meat. Halal means lawful or permitted in Arabic, and meat has to be raised and killed in a way that follows Islamic law laid out in the Quran.
According to Mushwani, there are stores in the region that sell Halal meat, but many of them only sell the whole animal rather than specific cuts of meat. He wanted to provide Spokane's Afghani community with a way to buy halal meat without having to buy more than they needed.
Mushwani says that the store houses a kitchen in the back as well, allowing its staff to bake and sell fresh bread daily.
"Every Afghan family, they need fresh bread everyday, like in the morning for breakfast, lunch and dinner," he says. "We have a secret recipe... Everybody can make it, the fresh bread, but the secret recipe is how the bread can be soft for about three, four, five days."
Mushwani eventually plans to open a takeout restaurant where he'll sell a variety of Afghan foods, such as different types of kebabs, dal, and karahi as well as kabuli pulao and kofta.
"My American friends are asking, 'Do we have an Afghani restaurant here in Spokane?'" he says. "I said, 'No, I'm going to open one soon though.'"
According to Mushwani, the grocery store has already received significant support from the community. For him, a favorite thing about the store is enhancing people's shopping experience and bringing something new to Spokane.
"When the people buy something and they're happy, that's the best part," Mushwani says. ♦
Afghani Grocery Store • 3004 N. Monroe St. • Open daily 10 am-7:30 pm • 509-325-2639
