Mike Kwasi Kwarteng, co-owner of Ike’s Cafe & Grill, said he wants to share some of his mother’s traditional Ghanaian cuisine when thousands visit metro Atlanta for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
With the 48-nation tournament less than two weeks away, the West African restaurateur is finishing up renovations at his family’s Norcross location, which opened 13 years ago this December.
Kwarteng said he expects the Marietta and Norcross locations to be packed during the summer’s World Cup games. While Ghana isn’t scheduled to play in Atlanta, African countries like Cabo Verde, South Africa, Morocco, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are playing here.
“Whenever the World Cup comes, wherever you’re from in Africa, east, west, or central, everybody is cheering together,” Kwarteng said. “If your team is not in it, it doesn’t matter; we get behind them.”
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West Africa to Gwinnett County
A full-service location of Ike’s Cafe & Grill opened last month on Cherokee Street in Marietta. Another location will open at Boulevard and Edgewood later this year. The restaurant’s specialities include Ghanaian jollof rice (and its spicier Nigerian cousin), as well as plantain fufu and West African vegetable soups.
Kwarteng said his parents made their journey to the United States in 1984. His father, Ike, first worked at The Varsity in downtown Atlanta. Then, in the mid-1990s, Kwarteng’s father set up a West African store in unincorporated Gwinnett County.
The family-run business, and its soon-to-be four restaurants, is now in the hands of Mike and his two siblings, Kwab and Marcelina. His brother is helping out with the location in Ghana, while his sister works on the Old Fourth Ward location.
“My mother and brother left in 2017 to go open another restaurant in Ghana,” Kwarteng said, explaining his extended family’s help with the business in their hometown of Kumasi. “We rotate and take turns. Pretty soon, I’ll go back over there.”
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An unlikely World Cup rivalry
One of the United States national soccer team’s biggest rivals outside of the Americas is Ghana. The teams played in three consecutive World Cups in 2006, 2010, and 2014. Ghana knocked the United States out of the tournament in 2006 and 2010, before the U.S. finally won against their West African rival during the group stage in 2014.
While Kwarteng said he’s more into American football and the Atlanta Falcons than soccer, he knew where the Ghanaian national team was training, their path to playing in Atlanta, and the health of the Black Stars‘ starting forward.
“They have like a 9% chance of winning the group, and if they do, they play the first round here in Atlanta,” Kwarteng said. “That’s what we’re praying on, but the group they’re in is crazy. It’s England, Croatia, and Panama.”
According to betting odds, Ghana has about a 45% chance of advancing to the knockout stages. On the other hand, the U.S. is the favorite to win their group and are expected to advance.
“Ghana’s team has this collective story, a low percentage chance of making it,” Kwarteng said. “It’s like my dad coming from Africa 40 years ago, doing a store, doing a restaurant. To get three locations is like a 9% chance, right?”
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