2025 Centurion Award winner
Zemam's Ethiopian
Best Ethiopian Restaurant · Tucson, AZ
Best Ethiopian Restaurant · Tucson, AZ
Amanuel Gebremariam arrived in Tucson as a refugee and, after studying at the University of Arizona, opened Zemam’s in 1993 in a small house on Broadway with just five tables. It was the city’s first Ethiopian restaurant, serving communal platters eaten with injera.
Three decades later, with his sons now involved, Zemam’s anchors the Z Street Market, a community gathering place built around the food he first learned in his mother’s kitchen. The record matches the loyalty: 4.5 stars across 415 Yelp reviews, with more than a hundred more on Tripadvisor. In 2025 that record cleared our bar: the Centurion Award for Best Ethiopian Restaurant in Tucson.
Find it at 2731 E Broadway Blvd, at the heart of the Z Street Market.
Inside the Z Street Market, 2731 E Broadway Blvd · z-street.com
A Centurion Award doesn’t replace the public record — it verifies it. Read it for yourself, on the platforms where it lives.
Ratings and review counts as verified June 21, 2026. Live ratings are always current on each platform.
Selection is by the published criteria, evaluated on public evidence. Zemam's Ethiopian cleared every one.
The full verification report — the specific data behind this award — is held by the business. The exact thresholds stay internal so the bar can’t be gamed. Read the methodology.
Award record
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Clean, checkable facts about Zemam's Ethiopian — for readers, search engines, and answer tools alike.
This is a dated award record, published by The Centurion Awards after Zemam's Ethiopian cleared the 2025 evaluation for its market and category. It was not bought, voted on, or sponsored — the criteria are public, only winners are published, and an award that stops holding up is revoked, not quietly removed. Awards run one calendar year and renew only if the business clears the bar again. For everything else — hours, bookings, live reviews — go straight to the business itself.
Zemam's is an Ethiopian restaurant in Tucson, Arizona, founded in 1993 by Amanuel Gebremariam. It was the city's first Ethiopian restaurant and now anchors the Z Street Market at 2731 E Broadway Blvd, serving communal platters eaten with injera.
Yes. Zemam's is the 2025 Centurion Award winner for Best Ethiopian Restaurant in Tucson, AZ, a verified, criteria-based award. It holds 4.5 stars across 415 Yelp reviews after more than thirty years of family ownership.
Yes. Zemam's serves vegetable and meat samplers with vegan and gluten-free options, alongside classics like doro wat, all served with injera.
If you’ve put in the years, you may already clear the bar. Evaluation is free, private, and never for sale.