6,000 Meals a Day. 40 Customers. Five Stars.

The restaurant review writes itself: 6,000 meals a day, 40 customers, five stars.

Salim Said, who ran Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis, was sentenced on October 28 to 30 years in federal prison for his $44 million share of the Feeding Our Future child-nutrition fraud. Prosecutors told the court his sites claimed what they called a 'ridiculous daily distribution of 6,000 meals' — while FBI surveillance cameras showed about 40 people a day actually collecting food. For 21 consecutive months, the claims kept coming, listing children who, prosecutors said, did not exist.

The punchline is not the arithmetic. It is the oversight. State auditors found that the Minnesota Department of Education received numerous complaints about Feeding Our Future — and often told the group to police itself. The fox was handed the henhouse keys, a clipboard, and a self-inspection form, and everyone acted surprised when the hens went missing by the thousand.

Said is going away for 30 years, and the health inspector has finally arrived. He would like to award the establishment five stars: one for every thousand meals nobody ate, and one spare for the regulator who told the restaurant to grade its own homework.

The underlying reporting is filed in the Evidence Locker: Associated Press (Oct. 28, 2026).