Markeshia Ricks Photos
City officials joined the owners of Patty’s Caribbean Cuisine …
… and International Tastebuds for a dual ribbon cutting on Congress Avenue.
The taste of the Caribbean has come to Congress Avenue thanks to three immigrants who’ve recently decided to put out shingled — right next door to each other.
Mayor Toni Harp and city economic officials held a joint ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday just in time for the lunch rush to welcome the new establishments, Patty’s Caribbean Cuisine and International Tastebuds, to the Hill.
The two restaurants are right next door.
Marcia Kemp is the Guyanese owner of International Tastebuds. She came to New Haven and the Hill more than 30 years ago. She recently retired from Yale-New Haven Hospital and is now opening a restaurant has always been her dream.
She made sure to let those gathered know that though Guyanese cuisine has the flavor of the Caribbean, it also has its own distinctive flavor. Kemp, who also is Muslim, noted that all meat at the restaurant is halal, which means that it is prepared to the high standards prescribed by Islamic law. The restaurant is the newer of the two, having opened in September.
“This is an endeavor of love,” she said. “My husband and I have planned this for a lot of years and teamed up with Dawn to make this happen. There is no other cuisine in Connecticut that can say they are Guyanese cuisine.”
Chef Marcia Kemp specializes in Guyanese cuisine …
“We are not the first but we hope to be the last,” she added. “Come in and enjoy some of our Guyanese, though somewhat reflective of the Caribbean it is an entirely different experience.”
Patty Deroche and Kenrick Durand, owners of Patty’s Caribbean Cuisine next door, hail from Trinidad and Dominica, respectively. And they’re bringing not only flavor from the Caribbean but also art. Durand is the artist and Deroche is the chef. He thanked the city for its support of the restaurant which opened in January of this year.
“It shows us how needed we are in the community because people need to be fed,” Durand said. “We partnered up together to have a gallery and Caribbean cuisine. When you enter here it feels like the Caribbean in cuisine and the art. We want to show you what we can do to promote each other and grow as a community.”
Mayor Harp said it was exciting to add to two new “foodie destinations” to New Haven’s ever-growing roster of places to eat.
“The opening of these businesses today is symbolic of how New Haven is open for business,” Harp said.
Steve Fontana, deputy economic development director for the city, said that as excited as city officials often are for new developments downtown, in a way neighborhood openings are even more exciting.
“It’s where so many live in New Haven and come to start their businesses with new ideas bringing fresh and exciting things,” he said.
International Tastebuds was able to open with the help from a new leasehold program through the Livable City Initiative, the city’s anti-blight agency. That program is run by former LCI neighborhood specialist and Hill native Jeff Moreno, who got a shoutout from Mayor Harp for his enthusiasm for the program.
Students from John C. Daniels welcome both restaurants to the neighorhoos.
Moreno said the improvement program provides grants up to $10,000 to small businesses and landlords for property improvements. People can be reimbursed 50 percent of costs for interior improvements. He said the program has been around about a year and International Tastebuds is the first one to be completed in the Hill, another 13 will be happening on the city’s main throroughfares of Whalley, Dixwell, Grand, Congress and Kimberly avenues.
“Since I’m from here this is my small way of giving back,” he said.
Hill Alder Ron Hurt said that the new businesses showcase the diversity of the Hill and New Haven as a whole.
“There’s no place like the Hill,” he told the owners. “New Haven is a great city and your business is in a great city, you are great people, wish you the best in all you do.”
Click the Facebook Live to catch the announcement.
I give this 8 thumbs up. Congratulations to all those involved.
Five out of six buildings on this block of Congress Avenue were originally built as residences. Over time, Congress Avenue became a mixed-use neighborhood commercial center as side streets were subdivided for residential development within walking distance of the streetcar line. Houses along Congress Avenue were subdivided, storefront additions were added, and other modifications were made to allow commercial and institutional activity along the ground floor with rental apartments above. Sometimes houses were demolished, and properties were assembled to build larger commercial structures (see the brick building at the corner of Congress and Daggett Street). Today, this block remains a mixture of storefronts, churches, and residences.
These types of incremental commercial modifications to residential fabric is largely illegal today in New Haven, except for pre-existing structures. In my opinion, the City should consider legalizing urbanism. Blanket upzoning of residential districts would likely illicit pushback from NIMBYs (and for good reasons), but I wonder if zoning provisions for accessory residential and commercial uses and structures would illicit less opposition. Would ground floor store fronts and rental apartments be so objectionable if home-owner occupancy were a pre-requisite to those investments in residential districts?
My apologies for commandeering the comments section on this article in order to promote my own agenda, but we're going on a decade of a "building boom" that to my knowledge hasn't meaningfully benefited existing homeowners and residents. Let's focus less on enabling top-down development, and encourage more bottom-up development of the kind showcased in this article.