Boosting visibility, clarity and revenue for a beloved local restaurant

Addis Ethiopian Restaurant

📍 San Diego, CA

Addis Ethiopian Restaurant is a family-owned restaurant in San Diego serving traditional Ethiopian cuisine rooted in heritage, patience, and hospitality. While deeply loved by its existing community, Addis struggled with visibility, discoverability, and underutilized space—challenges that limited revenue growth in a competitive post-COVID landscape.
Akitso partnered with Addis to transform brand, space, and customer experience into a cohesive system designed to attract new customers, increase dine-in engagement, and drive sustainable revenue growth.
Addis had strong fundamentals—exceptional food, cultural authenticity, and loyal customers—but lacked the design infrastructure needed to grow.
Key challenges included:
- Low walk-in traffic despite a large 2,000 sq ft dining room
- No website or social media presence; limited engagement on Google and Yelp
- Storefront signage that blended into the surrounding commercial strip
- An interior with rich cultural elements undermined by harsh lighting and generic furnishings
- A menu without visual hierarchy, making it difficult for new customers to order confidently
- An unclear brand identity that didn’t communicate Ethiopian cuisine to unfamiliar audiences
The result: a restaurant that felt full of life when busy—but visibly empty most days, limiting revenue and energy.
Strategy:
Align brand, space, and storytelling to reduce friction, increase discovery, and convert curiosity into repeat customers. We focused on three goals:
1. Make Addis easier to discover for new customers
2. Reduce ordering friction for first-time diners
3. Make the dining room feel as warm and memorable as the food
Scope of Work:
- Brand Identity & Visual System
- Menu Redesign
- Digital Presence & Social Media
- Interior & Storefront Design (July 2025)
- Grand Reopening Events + Community Activations

BEFORE — The traditional seating area featuring mesob tables was the highlight of the initial space

BEFORE — Ordinary banquet chairs, tables, white ceiling tiles and fluorescent lights overpowered thoughtful cultural decor

BEFORE — A large TV was the first thing customers would see first when they walked in

BEFORE — The coffee ceremony area was tucked in a very small nook and blocked by a large tv

BEFORE — A large 2,000 sq ft dining room was great for private events but felt empty during regular service

Our Impact

Design-driven growth across space, menu, and programming
Interior & Storefront Renovations
- 81% increase in monthly revenue immediately following the July 2025 renovation
- The redesigned space encouraged more dine-in experiences, increased walk-ins, and converted underused square footage into a revenue-generating atmosphere
Menu Redesign
- Clearer hierarchy and categorization led to stronger sales of key items and combos
- Improved ordering confidence for first-time customers
- “Because of the menu change, the sambusa, meat and veggie combo, and the doro wot got more clear, and more orders are coming from that area. Our sambusa sales are up.” — Fekad Engedaw, Co-Owner
Traditional Ethiopian Coffee Ceremonies
- Generated several thousand dollars in net revenue as a new, culturally rooted offering
- Attracted first-time customers while creating a repeatable, profitable program
Akitso helped Addis activate and optimize key online channels to support discovery, credibility, and customer engagement—turning digital visibility into a growth engine.
Across platforms, Addis experienced sustained digital growth, demonstrating how strategic design and visibility investments can compound over time into stronger discovery, trust, and revenue.
- Website: +44% increase in annual traffic (5,000 visits in 2024 → 7,200 visits in 2025)
- Instagram: +260% follower growth in 3 months through an SDSU Marketing Internship, creating a value exchange that built capacity while increasing reach
- Yelp: +22% increase in total reviews (358 in 2023 → 436 in 2025)
- Google Business: +155% increase in reviews (66 in 2023 → 168 in 2025)
Design as a catalyst for connection and cultural visibility
Through design, programming, and partnerships, Addis became more than a restaurant—it became a place of gathering, pride, and cross-cultural exchange.
- Revived and formalized Traditional Ethiopian Coffee Ceremonies (Buna) as a recurring offering
- 350+ San Diegans participated over the course of one year
- Hosted a community mural-painting event, inviting neighbors to contribute directly to the storefront
- Strengthened relationships between the business, local artists, and the surrounding neighborhood

Interior Design Renovation

We focused on rebalancing light, furniture, and spatial hierarchy to allow Addis’ rich cultural elements to shine. Harsh fluorescent lighting was replaced with warmer, incandescent lighting, furniture was adjusted to better complement traditional pieces like mesobs and wooden seating, and the coffee ceremony nook was given greater visual importance.

The renovation also included fresh ceiling paint, lime wash walls, seating arrangements and large planter boxes to section off seating areas, a built storage area for the staff, new/re-upholstered furniture, a large coffee ceremony platform and a welcoming entrance and host stand.

Visual Identity

Our brand moodboard draws inspo from Ethiopia’s rich landscapes, rituals, and traditions. Deep, earthy jewel tones echo the vibrancy of Ethiopian spices and the iconic colors of the national flag. Golden hints from meskel daisies and sacred iconography celebrate a culture of resilience, renewal, and joy.

The personality we sought to visually create is mature and reverent, yet warm and inviting—just like Ethiopian hospitality. Whether through coffee, cuisine, or conversation, this brand is designed to feel like home. The visual identity informed everything from menu layout to color choices in the dining room—ensuring consistency across every touchpoint.

Menu Redesign

Our redesigned menu introduces clearer visual hierarchy and thoughtful categorization, making it easier to navigate. We’ve also added vivid, inviting descriptions—and a dedicated section to help newcomers discover and understand the richness of Ethiopian cuisine.

“Because of the menu change, the sambusa, meat and veggie combo, and the doro wot got more clear, and more orders are coming from that area. Our sambusa sales are up.”

— Fekad Engedaw, Co-Owner

Storefront as Public Art

Using donor funding, Akitso commissioned a public-facing mural in partnership with ArtReach, transforming the storefront into a beacon rather than a barrier. Designed by ArtReach artist Esteban Sanchez, the mural depicts many hands coming together to share Ethiopian food around a mesob, with Ethiopian coffee featured prominently.

Beyond improving curb appeal, the mural served as a platform for community engagement: Addis hosted a community painting event where neighbors were invited to contribute directly to the artwork. The mural increased curb appeal, strengthened neighborhood identity, and signaled Addis as a place of culture and gathering.

Cultural Ritual as a Revenue & Community Asset

In our conversations with Alem and Fekad, we learned they once hosted traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremonies—an experience that had paused during the pandemic. We saw an opportunity to revive this beautiful ritual, not just as a nod to heritage, but as a powerful way to connect with the neighborhood.

Together, we launched a Saturday morning buna series: intimate, sensory-rich events that invited new guests to explore Ethiopian culture through coffee—and stay to enjoy the cuisine. We promoted the series on Eventbrite and reached out to local media, turning these gatherings into both a new revenue stream and a lead generator for Addis. The series ran weekly for a full year.