Urban Skillet

Urban Skillet is one of those Muslim-owned businesses that makes me grin every time I think about it. A Somali entrepreneur named MJ Mohammed, with help from founder Azeem Farooq, decided Minneapolis needed a halal smash-burger joint that could hang with — actually outperform — the national chains. So he opened Urban Skillet right near the corner of Hennepin Avenue South and West 24th Street, next door to a Five Guys. I love that. The audacity.

Here's what makes Urban Skillet matter. The beef is 100% halal grass-fed, which is the part that melts my heart as a Muslim parent. No more driving your kids past the burger joint and explaining why they can't eat there. No more scrolling Yelp to see if the chicken-only chain has halal at this specific franchise. At Urban Skillet, everything is halal, end of conversation. You order like anyone else, you eat like anyone else, and the burger is better than the chain next door.

The menu is tight and focused. The Original Skillet — smash patty, caramelized onions, lettuce, pickles — is the house signature. The Southern BBQ Burger is where it gets interesting: halal bacon, BBQ sauce, the works. Halal bacon, in America, at a casual burger joint. That's not a sentence I expected to type in 2026, but here we are. Loaded fries, hand-blended milkshakes in four flavors, and the usual sides round it out. It's a burger place. It does burger-place things exceptionally well.

The TikTok story is part of the magic. Urban Skillet blew up on TikTok before it blew up in traditional press — food creators like Munamealz and Momo Omar posted videos that pulled in tens of thousands of views, and suddenly Muslim families across the Twin Cities were showing up to try it. That's community commerce. That's organic reach driven by the people the business actually serves.

Why I flagged this as a BDS alternative: for families looking to move their burger dollars away from chain fast food — especially chains with problematic global positioning — Urban Skillet is exactly the kind of local Muslim-owned alternative that deserves the business. Halal smash burger, hand-blended shake, Somali-owned, right in your Minneapolis neighborhood. That's a swap worth making.

A few practical notes. Go at off-peak hours if you can — the line gets long, especially on weekends. The burgers come out fast once ordered. Cash and card are fine. The vibe is casual neighborhood burger joint, so don't over-dress. And yes, the shakes live up to the hype — try the Oreo or the pistachio.

The Amara take: Halal grass-fed smash burgers from a Somali-owned Minnesota small business. Move your burger budget here.