228 million people<\/a>, according to the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n\u201cJust to be able to see the mix of people that walk through the doors, you\u2019re like \u2018Wow, I didn\u2019t know that many Africans were right here in Tampa,'” Tete said. “It\u2019s been good. It\u2019s been good for them because they know they have a place they can come and feel at home.”<\/p>\n
The restaurant also shares its food with the Tampa Bay area thanks to two food trucks that spread the beating heart of West Africa through food.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can not do authentic African food and not have the moms or the aunties in the back there. It\u2019s not just something that you can go on from YouTube and whip something up,” Tete emphasized. “One of the things I want to speak to is that you will find authentic African food here. For those who are not West African, what you will find here is that you will find warmth. You will find authenticity, culture, but most of all you will find love and acceptance right here at Steaming Pots.\u201c\u00a0<\/p>\n
New employee Laurethe Gyamfi from Ghana said the restaurant offers a bridge to the continent for those unable to travel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to visit Africa or West Africa and you don\u2019t have the ability to go, you can come here. We will try our best to give you that experience without the price tag of a $1,000 ticket on a plane,” Gyamfi said.<\/p>\n
Gyamfi works at the restaurants on the weekends while also working a full-time job at a nearby bank. She has described how Tampa\u2019s West African community helped her find a sense of belonging away from home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I moved here, my friend went to USF. She made friends in college because they have the African community at USF,” Gyamfi said. “She introduced me to a couple of people. I have two very close friends who live here. I do most things with them. We go out to eat, we find new restaurants. Basically, they are my sisters now. Anything that has to do with Tampa we do together.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The reactions underscore how complex religious, political and military relations remain in Nigeria, even as those ties are felt far from West Africa.<\/p>\n
Many people in Tampa\u2019s West African community said they are focused on welcoming new visitors and new regulars into their homes and into restaurants come 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nigerian government confirmed it cooperated with the U.S. government in Thursday\u2019s strike, which President Trump described as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-98626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}