Beauty influencer Salma Abdi (@hijabieveryydayy) and friend Anisa Hussein (@anisahusseinn) say a visit to Sonny’s Ice Cream Cafe—the Instagrammable Minneapolis mainstay operating since 1945—turned hostile, at least in their view. They say a Sonny’s employee confronted them over taking photographs, an encounter the Somali women described as “racist.”
Sonny’s Worker Stops Somali Women From Taking Photos
Abdi says that she and Hussein were snapping pictures outside Sonny’s, located at 3403 Lyndale Ave. S., when a woman approached them and said photography wasn’t permitted unless they booked the venue. It was unclear whether the woman was an employee or an owner. “She does not look like she’s the owner,” Abdi told her followers before adding with a laugh, “No offense. No shade.”
The confrontation also didn’t stop at the sidewalk, she said. According to Abdi, once they decided to go inside, they were told to either get in line and order something or leave. The exchange left both women and a third friend upset, obviously enough to make a TikTok about it. “She was so disrespectful,” Abdi says, later calling the woman racist.
Abdi says other patrons saw what happened to them and walked out in something akin to solidarity. “As soon as they’ve seen how she’s treated us, everybody was like, ‘Forget that,’” she recounts. Both women urged followers to leave negative Google reviews and avoid the spot entirely. Hussein’s final verdict was succinct: “Zero out of ten.”
‘We Had The Same Experience’
In the comments section, viewers said they’ve encountered the same thing at Sonny’s.
“My friends and I experienced the exact same thing,” said one commenter. Then, it popped up again with another person: “Y’all not even exaggerating at all. We had the same experience; it’s crazy.”
Another commenter noticed something interesting. “I think they deleted all the reviews people are leaving or got Google to delete it cause I see that there’s 400 something reviews, but when I click on it the newest one is from 2 weeks ago,” they wrote.
Upon review, this person appears to be correct. A quick look at Sonny’s Google reviews shows that the most recent ones were from weeks ago. This doesn’t seem to be a likely scenario.
This said, none of this is proof of racism. But the fact that multiple parties seem to have had the same experience suggests something problematic might be going on.
A Familiar Chill
The encounter described by Abdi and Hussein exists within a growing, well-documented pattern of hostility directed at hijab-wearing Somali women in public-facing businesses. In December 2025, a Cinnabon employee in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, was terminated after hurling racial slurs at a Somali Muslim couple and deriding the woman’s hijab—an incident captured on TikTok that drew national attention and competing crowdfunding campaigns.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations logged a record 8,683 anti-Muslim discrimination complaints in its 2026 civil rights report, with the organization’s Minnesota chapter alone documenting 693 incidents in 2025. Employment discrimination led the tally. But it was everyday public hostility—the kind that can pop up in ice cream shops and fast food counters—that constitutes its own corrosive category. They rarely generate legal complaints but consistently erode the sense that certain spaces are meant for everyone.
All of this being said, racism is difficult to prove, even in this case.
AllHipHop has reached out to Abdi and Hussein via TikTok direct messages and comments and to Sonny’s Ice Cream Cafe via email for more information. We will update this story if any party responds.
