Winooski’s Nada Market has a globetrotting history

Dark grey clouds drizzle spring Vermont rain on Nada Market located at 325 Main St. in Winooski. To the right of the shop is a Walgreens and to the left is Colonial, a mobile home supply shop. Cars whiz by out front, splattering passers-by with the water from puddles.

But this market, and the family that has kept it going, has seen far more than the rhythms of Vermont’s seasons. 

Opened in 2010, Nada Market is managed by Ahmed Aref and is owned by his son Aymen Yahya. Nada Market originated in Iraq and traveled as the family moved across borders.

“We had a big supermarket in Iraq and when they start the war in Iraq in 2003,” Ahmed says, “we left Iraq in 2005 and we went to Jordan. After this, we opened another store in Jordan, the same Nada Market.”

The store is arranged with industrial metal shelves that are laid with tins of Middle Eastern sweets, blocks of cheese, tubs of yogurt, and bags of spices. Long coolers with meat, fish and other specialty items stretch from the register, where Ahmed's daughter, Najlaa works, to the back where Ellie Muzaliwa cuts vegetables and prepares meat, coming to help customers carry their purchases out to their cars from time to time.

“Most people that work here are family,” Najlaa says, “so it’s like a family shop.”

The roots of the store span nearly 100 years, beginning with Ahmed's father.

“My father had the store from 1945,” Ahmed says.

“In Iraq, it was way way bigger than this, three times the size,” Najlaa says, “over there we had customers we built relationships with, customers for years and years, and we have to close it because of war.”

Their second store, located in Jordan, was open from 2006 through 2008. In that year they appealed to the United Nations and were told they could move to the US.

“We came to Vermont in 2009,” Ahmed says. “We have been here for 13 years.”

The two explain that business in Vermont has been good and that they have a consistent customer base that they rely on.

“Our customers are pretty loyal”, Najlaa says, “[we have] specific stuff that they can't really find somewhere else,” she says, “we have Middle Eastern food, we have African food.”

“Here, the customers here are easier to deal with,” she says, “they don’t only buy the stuff that they can’t find anywhere, they also buy the common stuff that they can find in Price Chopper, Shaws. Like milk, vegetables.”

The father and daughter vary in opinion about living in Vermont.

“It’s cold,” Najlaa says, “and not that diverse.”

Ahmed, on the other hand, points to his heart and says, “Vermont here.”

All photos by Dylan Streb.