Orfan Hussain Zada never considered giving up.
He didn’t give up after his father died and he was forced to leave his home in Afghanistan with his mother and sister.
He didn’t think about giving up after waiting almost a year with other Afghan refugees on a military base in Indiana, before being sent to a small town in Vermont, which he had never heard of.
And he didn’t give up when, two months ago, the new restaurant he’d labored to open in Brattleboro suddenly faced an existential crisis. Less than a month after it opened, the lights turned off and stayed off — the landlord hadn’t paid the utility bills, forcing Zada and his business partners to temporarily shut down.
With help from the community, the three Afghan entrepreneurs are now scrambling to reopen.
Zada, 31, was a surgeon’s assistant before coming to the United States, and after settling in southern Vermont in 2022, he started selling Afghan food with his mother at the Brattleboro Farmers’ Market.
When customers began asking if they had a restaurant, it sparked an idea.
“America is the land of opportunity, and this is our opportunity to start a new business,” Zada said.
A shared contact had introduced Zada to two other young Afghans, Rauf Rostami and Reza Jawidan, who were living in Boston and also dreaming of starting a restaurant.
"This is our way to bring our culture to the American people."Orfan Hussain Zada
So when Zada found a vacant restaurant in North Brattleboro, he convinced them to move to southeastern Vermont to both serve the state's growing Afghan community, and also to introduce Afghan cuisine to the people in his new home in the United States.
“The people in Brattleboro have been very kind to me, and this is our way to bring our culture to the American people,” he said.
They pulled together every dollar they had, Zada said, and got a few loans from friends.
Their restaurant, named Saffron, opened in the middle of March, and the immediate reaction was very strong.
Brattleboro was one of the first towns in the country to embrace a State Department-sponsored program where local families host new refugees in their homes.
When Saffron opened, those families and other nearby friends flocked to it.
Then, on a Sunday morning, about three weeks after they opened, they arrived to find the electricity had been turned off.
The landlord had not been paying his bills, and the electric company shut off the power, according to Rostami.
“It was a very bad moment for us,” said Rostami, who left Afghanistan as a teenager, spent time cooking in restaurants in Boston, and is now the head chef for the group. “We have to be strong and learn from the situation and then go to the next step.”
Supporters set up a GoFundMe page, which raised more than $20,000 to support the restaurant.
And then a restaurant owner who had recently closed his own business told the trio that they could set up shop in his building, free of charge, until they get back on their feet.
“I saw here three young men, with energy, and a vision, and I wanted to give them a chance at being successful."Bo Foard, owner, Chelsea Royal Diner
“I gave my business all I had, but I couldn’t make it work,” said Bo Foard, who owns the iconic Chelsea Royal Diner in West Brattleboro. “I saw here three young men, with energy, and a vision, and I wanted to give them a chance at being successful.”
Foard said the Afghans can remain at the Chelsea Royal for as long as they like if the business is successful.
For the past few weeks, Zada, Rostami and Jawidan have been cleaning and preparing the Chelsea Royal, which first opened in 1939.
“The things that are in our control, is our life, and how we use it; bad way or good way,” Rostami said. “I can’t choose to what kind of family I am born into; rich or not rich. But I can choose how I can be in this life.”
So the dream is alive, and the three young Afghans hope to reopen Saffron in the next month or so in the new location.
“I left everything I have to come to the U.S. I have a sister who is 4 years old and I never met her,” Rostami said. “I have to be a success. I have to. I want to try my best to one day bring my family here. Right now we are starting from zero, but we will see the hundred.”
