The words “fast casual” are far from what’s expected of most West African food.

Growing up in Rhode Island with a Liberian family, Andrea Kamara-Oketunji can still smell the suya, a rich and thinly sliced spiced meat, that simmered in a pot of her mother’s jollof rice for hours, slowly arriving at the perfect texture.

“My mom still gets upset when I go with my aunt’s recipe and not hers,” said Kamara-Oketunji, 36. Nothing about the process was simple or quick.

Yet access and convenience of this food is exactly what Kamara-Oketunji and her husband Lekan Oketunji, born to a Nigerian family, intend to bring to Baltimore — and beyond.

Kamara-Oketunji said the goal of their restaurant, Jollof Bowl, is to introduce new diners to West African flavors by offering them a faster, more casual entry point that’s capable of challenging preconceived notions of the cuisine. The menu of rice bowls and street food, now moving to a larger stall in Federal Hill’s Cross Street Market after opening there this summer, has already captured the stomachs of social media users and local patrons.

Customers lining up at the stall walk through a Chipotle-style bar with their choice of options like fried plantains, goat meat, lamb and “yassa-style” onions, based on the Senegalese traditional dish stewed with chicken, lemon and mustard. The recipes are carefully curated by Kamara-Oketunji, the chef, and her husband to be simpler, allowing them to churn out fresh food daily without compromising too much authenticity.

“We’re not going to compete with your mama,” said Oketunji, 42.

Over the last two decades, restaurants and chains have flocked to the fast-casual sector of the industry. Leaders like Chipotle, Panda Express and Panera raked in sales in 2024, opening new locations and seemingly thwarting some of the financial downturn experienced by struggling chains post-pandemic. Reports on major fast-casual chains indicated such eateries are primed to pivot with changing consumer habits by offering a premium product that’s easily accessible.

Jollof Bowl felt like an opportunity to carve out a larger piece of the pie for the type of food the Oketunjis were raised on. Their business occupies a unique space in Baltimore, where most West African food is served in family-owned mom and pop shops looking to transport consumers with eccentric flavors and starchy staples like fufu that you’re encouraged to eat with your hands. Jollof Bowl is instead a franchise-ready concept, built for scale to, as the owners say, further “disrupt the quick-service space.”

The idea for the restaurant came from a business Kamara-Oketunji started in 2018 when she lived in Monrovia, Liberia. She operated an eatery in the capital city as well as one in Abuja, Nigeria, where she got her first break trading commissions she earned as a real estate agent for space in the ground floor of a building. She grew interested in meal prepping for the expats and USAID workers at her Monrovia restaurant who were looking for easy, healthy dishes they could assemble for lunch and on-the-clock dinners.

The passion morphed into a delivery service called Balance Bowls that looked very different from the area’s other offerings. Kamara-Oketunji said the local industry was not overly concerned with health or someone making meals for you outside of the traditional restaurant format — a departure from growing trends in the United States. As a new Liberian administration cast out many of the non-Liberians that made up her customer base, Kamara turned to Nigeria, and then eventually the United States to build the business.

Then COVID-19 hit in 2020 and trips between countries became complicated. Managing delivery workers and quality cooking, along with the expense of transporting authentic spices, turned into a financially and emotionally crushing endeavor. She sold the company in 2023 to a food delivery and catering company called Pocket Food. She and Oketunji, who spent 13 years working in restaurants and nightclubs, spawned the early stages of Jollof Bowl only months later.

At first Kamara-Oketunji was skeptical of the name; it didn’t have the punch of an Amazon or Chipotle. But in strategizing the menu, they found the simplicity of the business allowed them room to create with West African barbecue sauces and aiolis, Senegalese-roasted lamb in the style of suya and an almost nondenominational jollof rice.

“Jollof rice is like the pizza of West Africa,” Oketunji said, referring to the dish’s varied regional flairs and the contentious rivalry over the best version.

Together, they built a rice with the smokiness found in many parts of Nigeria, the ginger beloved in Ghana, but without the jambalaya-style focus on mixed meats and vegetables found in Liberia. Whereas Kamara-Oketunji’s mother threw fried chicken wings and meatballs into the rice, the Oketunjis opted for boneless chicken meat and less nutty flavors so it can be palatable to those more health-conscious or with peanut allergies.

The food has sparked praise from across the country, with one recent Instagram video deeming it the “viral African Chipotle” drawing over 1.2 million views. Kamara-Oketunji said the interest pushed her to take control of the narrative, posting videos with her husband explaining their story and culture as opposed to allowing the food to speak for itself. They’ve started playing Nigerian music at the stall. Creating community through food, she said, will be the through line for Jollof Bowl as the business grows.

While some say the fast casual is showing signs of slowing — Panera announced a new plan to turn around stagnating sales in November — the Oketunjis said they’re eager to build an empire of Jollof Bowls nationwide. They’ve hired additional staff in Baltimore so Kamara-Oketunji can spend less time in the kitchen, where she used to spend hours on end whipping up marinades before opening.

“I want people to hear from us and see us talking about the food and the culture,” she said. “We’re trying to grab the microphone back.”