Member-only story
The Man Whose Surveillance Camera Sparked a National Uprising
Rashad West went from hardworking teen to college athlete to restaurant owner by the age of 26. Then he single-handedly proved that George Floyd was not resisting arrest.
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
For Minneapolis restaurateur Rashad West, 2019 was the absolute best. Business at Dragon Wok, his Southside Minneapolis Asian eatery, was booming. After four years, West’s takeout joint was outgrowing its modest 1,100 square feet. This was when fate struck and put the 30-year-old African American in position to make history. Explicit Black history.
A neighboring proprietor looking to retire offered West the opportunity to move Dragon Wok a few blocks east, down 38th Street, from Nicollet to Chicago avenue. The new real estate tripled his space and enabled him to offer a new service: indoor dining. In January, he moved into his new digs; his new doors opened in early March. Then Covid-19 hit.
Unlike many Americans, West didn’t panic. His concern ran towards the community first and his business second. “I was thinking that I didn’t want the Minneapolis economy to collapse,” says West. “Also, if there are no jobs then there’s no money — and if there’s no money, there’s no takeout.”
Fortunately, Dragon Wok had built its name on exceptional customer relations. “If you’ve been there more than once, you’re like family,” says longtime Dragon Wok patron, Ashlee Mueller. If any local spot was built to withstand a national pandemic, it was West’s. And that’s not even taking into account the food; while a menu featuring Kung Pao chicken and curried Singapore noodles normally doesn’t appear in a Black-owned restaurant, West swears his boasts the best lo mein and fried rice in all 50 states.
Like many African Americans, he assumed the coronavirus would be his biggest obstacle in 2020. And it might have been, until a surreal pairing of quarantine and technology changed everything. Not long after footage of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder spread across the country, a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, sparking an…
