About
Ethnosh
My family and I love the Ethnosh experience! Supporting our neighbors through their stories, their cultures, flavors, and traditions from around the world has made an impact on the way in which we experience our region and appreciate special immigrant owned small businesses that help in making Dayton so special. We can't wait to continue to be a part of more opportunities that create community through cuisine!
- Leslee C.
I love Ethnosh because it isn’t just about the food as much as it is really about the culture! The stories of the owners, how they started up their restaurant with recipes from their family and culture and listening to the history of their country. That’s what has been amazing to me. It wasn’t about the food—although the food was awesome—but the power of narrative and the community-building.
​
- John S.
Ethnosh was founded by Donovan McKnight in 2015 in Greensboro, NC. With his Columbian-born wife, Donovan began exploring the diversity of Greensboro’s immigrant-owned restaurants. As they interacted with the various owners, they quickly realized that the stories they heard and the food they ate needed to be shared with their friends and the larger community. In 2019, Dayton became the second and only other city in the Ethnosh network, visiting six restaurants between October 2019 and March 2020 before COVID stopped everything. Donovan and his family have since moved to Columbia, but we are most grateful for his permission to continue using the Ethnosh name as we relaunch here in Dayton.
​
Ethnosh is committed to getting locals “in the know” and out to eat at the excellent local immigrant-owned international restaurants and food businesses. Pairing a rich online experience with real-world events, Ethnosh fosters cross-cultural discovery and enrichment and drives business to potentially underserved areas within communities. Ethnosh’s casual tasting events, called NoshUps, bring people from all walks of life together to sample authentic international cuisine and meet the families that bring the deliciousness to their communities.
​
Ethnosh is an initiative of The Collaboratory, in partnership with Dayton Metro Library and Welcome Dayton. Part community research and development lab, part social enterprise incubator-accelerator, part community convener, The Collaboratory is where Dayton’s dreamers and doers gather to move innovative ideas to transformational action. We are committed to “Unleashing Dayton’s Potential.” For more information about The Collaboratory, please visit daytoncollaboratory.org.