This Ethiopian Dive Bar’s Most Surprising Hit Is Its All-You

You wouldn’t think Club Waziema even serves food.

We rolled up to the ancient Divisadero Street watering hole at a little past nine o’clock on a Friday night, drawn by Waziema’s reputation as San Francisco’s best and only Ethiopian dive bar. Inside the crowded, dimly lit room, the jukebox blared the opening chords of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” while a gaggle of half-tipsy twentysomethings ordered “whatever red wine” and three vodka cranberries at the long, curved bar. (“Perfect order,” the bartender quipped.)

The place has that homey, lived-in quality that all the best dive bars have, with its gorgeous, red-velvet damask wallpaper, rumored to date back to the 1940s. Framed photos of legends like Louis Armstrong and Marvin Gaye who played there during the bar’s heyday as a jazz club in t