Jamaican fast food: The next big thing?

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BY BECKY AIKMAN

Forks in hand, blindfolds in place, three employees of Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill sat down in front of a selection of tossed salads topped with grilled chicken. To the left, a takeout salad from a major fast-food chain. To the right, a similar salad under development at Golden Krust, one with chicken flavored by Jamaican jerk seasoning.

Burnet Morrison, a production manager in the bread department, smiled at the one on the right. "There's a real Jamaican flavor here," he said.

"What about the spice?" asked Lowell Hawthorne, Golden Krust's president, who regularly oversees taste tests at company headquarters in the South Bronx . Morrison gave the spice his highest rating.

"Of course," Hawthorne explained, "our samplers mostly want it spicy. We always have to tone it down a little." Still, he declared the dish ready for the market. "It's not too spicy, but it has a little zip to it."

Mainstream zip

Zip is important. In fact, the quest to achieve mainstream popularity for Caribbean cuisine depends on finding just the right amount of zip. And the fast-growing, New York City-based chain of Golden Krust restaurants is a leader in that quest . Golden Krust is best known for its Jamaican-style patties, which are pockets of dough filled with spicy beef, chicken, vegetables or other Caribbean ingredients. They are popular with the West Indian immigrants who make up most of the customers for the chain's 82 outlets, many of them located near subway stops in the city.

But menu offerings have to attract a wider public if Hawthorne is to reach his goal of 250 restaurants in the next five years, as Golden Krust continues expanding to Long Island , Westchester and as far away as California and Florida.

Hawthorne thinks Americans are ready for more spice in their food. "Americans' taste buds over the years have changed," he said. "People are more adventurous now. People are more willing to try new things."

Whether they'll embrace the jerk chicken salad, scheduled to debut next month, has yet to be decided. But in the meantime, Hawthorne is hoping that Caribbean food can be a next big craze in a country that's embraced everything from pizza to sushi to tacos over the years.

The next pizza?

Are patties the next pizza? So far, Golden Krust has made it through the first phase followed by other up-and-coming ethnic foods -- appealing to its immigrant base. Now, the company, a pioneer in Caribbean food for 14 years, is seeking crossover appeal just as some big new competitors, including the chain that runs Olive Garden Italian restaurants, are beginning to tempt Americans with island flavors.

One thing Golden Krust has going for it is authenticity, in the form of family recipes from the well-regarded, 50-year-old bakery owned by Hawthorne 's father, Ephraim, in St. Andrews , Jamaica . "My father always produced the best homemade product in Jamaica ," said Hawthorne, 44, who used to work behind the counter along with 10 brothers and sisters.

When nine of them wound up in the United States , Hawthorne , then an accountant with the New York City police department, suggested they start a bakery here. They pooled $107,000, using the Jamaican concept of susu, whereby everyone pitched in $100 a week to raise start-up money after banks refused them a loan. "They said it was an unproved concept," Hawthorne said.

But within weeks after the family opened its bakery on East Gun Hill Road in the northern Bronx , nostalgic West Indians traveled from Connecticut and New Jersey , taking home bags full of hot patties, along with coconut breads, cakes and traditional dense white breads, called hardough breads.

Today, the company produces most of its food, including 125,000 to 150,000 patties a day, at its Bronx headquarters, then freezes and ships it for final baking to the restaurants. Two are company-owned, the original one in the Bronx and the other on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica , Queens . Eighty others are franchises. Of those, 67 are in Brooklyn , the Bronx , Queens and Manhattan , but others now extend to suburban Hempstead and White Plains as well as five other states.

Mostly takeout

Brightly decorated in sunny yellow and orange tiles, the restaurants are mostly takeout shops with limited seating and feature all the company's original products, including the $1.35 beef patties, the most popular item. Offered in both spicy and mild versions, the patties are flavored with scallions, thyme and Scotch bonnet peppers.

There are eight other patty varieties, including vegetable and callalloo. Heartier meals, including stewed chicken, curried goat and grilled fish, all with sides like peas and rice and plantains, tend to cost from $6.99 to $8.49.

Franchises in Brooklyn attract an almost all-West Indian clientele, but non-Caribbeans make up nearly a third of the customers at newer locations in the suburbs and Manhattan , Hawthorne said. This pattern of widening appeal for ethnic foods is part of the heritage of dining out in the United States and crucial to the $440-billion restaurant industry, according to Hudson Riehle, research director of the National Restaurant Association.

"Obviously, a lot of growth over the last decade has come from increased utilization of ethnic cuisine," he said. "In many ways, the top three ethnic cuisines" -- Italian, Mexican and Cantonese Chinese -- "are no longer really perceived as ethnic, because they've become so ingrained in the American culture."

In a study in 1999, the association found that only 24 percent of Americans had tried Caribbean food. "But we found that Caribbean was one of the fastest-growing ethnic cuisines among dozens," Riehle said. "It's obviously trendy and evolving." Those who've tried it tend to be young and live in urban areas or the South, he added. And in part because many diners discover it on vacation, it's perceived as exotic and festive.

Patties, in particular, have happy associations for West Indians, said Virginia Burke, who is an author of Caribbean cookbooks -- including the upcoming "Eat Caribbean" -- and managing director of Walkerswood Marketing Ltd., a company that sells Jamaican food products. "A very high percentage of the population is very happy to eat a patty every day for lunch," she said. Why? "They're warming and delicious. One patty is just like a perfect meal. It's really filling, and you can eat it right out of the bag."

Jamaica is the original home of patties, but other islands offer versions of dough filled with spicy foods, including empanadas in Puerto Rico and roti in Trinidad .

Upper Krust in franchising

Golden Krust isn't the only company offering patties in United States , although it is a leader in franchising. Tower Isles Frozen Foods in Bedford-Stuyvesant sells more than 100,000 patties a day to supermarkets as well as convenience stores, delis and pizza shops that bake them on site.

Caribbean Food Delights makes 250,000 a day at a factory in Tappan , N.Y. , for sale at major supermarkets and warehouse chains, including Costco, Wal-Mart and Pathmark. The company plans to start franchising restaurants under the name JerkQ-zine next year.

"We're looking to reach the crossover market in a big way," said Tim Conway, director of sales and marketing. "We're experiencing double-digit growth every year at stores that are really serving mainstream Americans. It shows that Americans are embracing this product."

There's new competition in more upscale Caribbean food, as well. Darden Restaurants, the company that runs the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains, opened its first Bahama Breeze Caribbean-style restaurant in 1996 and now has 32, mostly in the South. They feature upscale food and decor, including bright teal and red colors, dark woods and palm trees.

Also, since 2002, Margaritaville Holdings, a company run by the singer Jimmy Buffett, has opened sit-down restaurants called Cheeseburger in Paradise in a joint venture with Outback Steakhouse. There are seven so far, most clustered in the Midwest, offering a mix of Caribbean, New Orleans and other American food in tropical settings.

Golden Krust is staying with a more fast-food approach and the fast growth possibilities offered by franchising. The company recently increased its franchise fee by $5,000 to $25,000. Franchisees also pay a royalty of 3 percent of sales. While Hawthorne won't release revenue figures for the company, they have been reported elsewhere at $40 million.

The public school patty

A four-year contract with city public schools, started in September 2003, should introduce 24 million patties to potential future customers. "Instead of having burgers and pizza in school, the children are now running around with their mommy saying they want the Jamaican patty," Hawthorne said.

The growth hasn't all been smooth. In August, Hawthorne hired Robert Jones, a Harvard MBA with experience at companies like PepsiCo, to be chief operating officer. But they soon parted ways, and Hawthorne continues to keep family members in many key posts.

Among franchisees, 95 percent have Jamaican roots. Winsome Cunningham, a former nurse, owns three franchises on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn . Two gross $1 million a year each, and one grosses $750,000, while all generate a profit of 10 to 20 percent.

At lunchtime recently, dozens of customers lined up for patties as Cunningham worked the counter and checked on employees in the back, chopping onions for meals and popping patties into ovens.

Baker Howard Richards showed off a tray of patties. "I grew up with this kind of food," he said. "Patties and coco bread and a soda were lunch when I was in school."

The clientele mostly comes from Jamaica , Trinidad , Barbados and Haiti , Cunningham said. "They're happy to have a store to call their own."

Evelyn Denis, a home health aide, nibbled on a beef patty out front. It had the right amount of zip for her. "I'm Haitian, and I like spicy food," she said with a laugh. "We're hot people, spicy people." Still, she conceded, "Jamaican people -- they make good food."