Yardie Ting chef Jake Williams and his wife, owner Shanna-Kay Wright-Williams. The restaurant moved downstairs and expanded in the Public Market this year and now takes up most of the first floor. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

Ellsworth, a small city of about 8,000 people just north of Bar Harbor, might seem an unlikely place to open a Jamaican restaurant. But in 2016, Jamaican native Shane Griffiths had been living in the area for 10 years, and felt he was long overdue for a taste of home cooking.

“It was just a struggle,” Griffiths recalled. “Back a few years ago, there really wasn’t much ethnic food around here. There was no Jamaican food around, no Caribbean food period. I had nowhere to go to buy what I wanted. But I knew how to cook it, and I was like, ‘This is an opportunity to introduce people to Jamaican food.’ And I just went for it.”

He launched Taste of Jamaica, a tidy little restaurant on State Street with patio seating out back. Fortunately enough, the community went for it, too.

“They were very excited to have something different,” Griffiths said. “Slowly but surely, they worked their way through the menu. They started with the safe stuff – jerk chicken or pork – and then things they might not think they’d ever eat, like oxtail and curry goat, but they loved it.”

Today, more than a dozen Jamaican restaurants and Caribbean markets are scattered around Maine. Griffiths helped his friend and fellow Jamaican Clayton Whyte launch Strait Jamaican earlier this year in Waterville. Kool Runnins opened in South Paris in August, and in late October, Jamaican/Caribbean market Island Affairs opened in South Portland.

Add to these, Tropical Caribbean in Wells, Go See Tyce in Saco, Jeff’s Jamaican Cuisine in Lewiston, J & J Jamaican Grocery and Gift Shop in Warren, Caribbean Taste in South Portland and Portland’s Yardie Ting, which moved to a larger space in the Public Market House in September.

Like Griffiths, many of these entrepreneurs opened their shops and eateries in part to provide themselves and other Jamaican residents and seasonal workers with the foods they crave most.

“My heart was really happy when I found Yardie Ting,” said Kady Scott of Portland, who moved to Maine from Jamaica six years ago. She hits up Yardie Ting three times a week for a plate of jerk chicken with “festivals” (fried cornbread, similar to hush puppies) and plantains, or sometimes oxtails. “To have food from home, and just to be in an atmosphere where people sound like you and can relate to you, it was really a warm feeling.”

But it also gives the restaurateurs the chance to introduce locals to the cuisine in which they take immense pride, from the bold and fiery jerks to soul-soothing curry stews, oxtail braises and rich soups.

“We have Jamaican customers, but most of our customers are people willing to try new food and learn about the culture,” said Keneisha Jenkins, manager of South Portland’s Caribbean Taste. “And it’s mainly the locals that go crazy over the oxtails and jerk chicken.”

“Once you’ve had a little taste of Jamaican food,” said Yardie Ting owner Shanna-Kay Wright-Williams, “you’re hooked and you want more.”

Jerk chicken plate with mac & cheese at Yardie Ting. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

A TASTE OF HOME

About 2,000 Jamaicans lived in Maine year-round as of 2022, according to the Migration Policy Institute. While they have no data for prior years, Maine’s Jamaican residents say their numbers are growing.

The state’s Jamaican community also includes many seasonal workers who come each year on H-2A and H-2B visas to work on farms and in hospitality. Jamaican seasonal workers based in Bar Harbor are part of Griffiths’ customer base, along with the year-round community of what he estimates to be 100 Jamaican expats.

“One of the services we offer is making people feel more at home,” Griffiths said. “You don’t always want to make dinner every single night, so to be able to get something you’re used to that you don’t have to cook, it’s a good feeling.”

“Seasonal workers find their way to Richie’s,” said Richard Smith, chef and co-owner of Richie’s Jerk & BBQ in Sanford, a cozy diner-style restaurant with eight counter seats. Smith is a trained chef with years of experience cooking at hotels in Florida and Maine, including the Kennebunkport Resort Collection. He and his wife, Stephannie, augment their inventory with produce they grow among the picnic tables in the restaurant’s side yard, like habeñero, jalapeño and Scotch bonnet chiles, bell peppers, tomatoes, herbs and kale.

“The seasonal workers tell me, ‘I’ve been here six months working and this is the best. I feel like I’m at home again. This can keep me until I get back to Jamaica.’ They need something authentic like what they’re used to.”

Local Jamaican restaurants also nourish and comfort Maine’s year-round Jamaican residents. Paulette Darby of South Portland, who came to Maine from Jamaica in 2008 and works as a private caregiver and medical technologist, eats at Caribbean Taste about twice a week, often ordering curry goat, rice and peas or red pea soup fortified with chicken feet, pig tails and beef and brimming with collagen.

“It’s beautiful to have a place to get the food you’re accustomed to from back home. It makes me feel less homesick,” Darby said. “Caribbean people in general normally try to cook their own food at home. But because of work – and when you work two jobs – you don’t have time to go home and prepare food. So it’s good to know you have somewhere you can run to and grab a nice meal, and Caribbean Taste is that place for me.”

Yardie Ting’s red snapper. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

YARDIE TING EVOLVES

A heaping serving of the food you were raised on is a surefire remedy for homesickness, but so is finding community with fellow nationals.

Wright-Williams came to Maine in 2005 because her mother had moved here full-time. For the first several years she lived here, she would introduce herself to fellow Jamaicans whenever she heard their lilting island accent, and let them know which local bodegas stocked Jamaican staples like canned ackee fruit and stewed callaloo greens.

“Wherever I saw (Jamaican products), I would be so excited, I would tell family and friends about it and I’d buy some,” Wright-Williams said. “So I also became like an advocate for Jamaican food for a while. It was kind of crazy. And I started Yardie Ting because I was homesick.”

Wright-Williams originally planned for Yardie Ting to be a t-shirt company. She wanted to sell shirts featuring Jamaican sayings like Yardie Ting, which means “Jamaican thing,” as Jamaicans sometimes refer to themselves as yardies.

As a launch party for her new business, Wright-Williams organized Portland’s first Jamaican Independence Day Festival on Aug. 6, 2013, in Deering Oaks Park.

“Of course, there had to be food,” Wright-Williams said. “So my family and I made some dishes like rice and peas, jerk chicken and pork. And nobody cared about my t-shirts. It was all about the food. I got my first catering gig that day.”

Over the next few years, Yardie Ting became a popular catering service and food vendor at reggae festivals and events like the Old Port Festival. In 2019, Wright-Williams was looking for a commissary kitchen in Portland when she saw space was available upstairs at the Public Market. She quit her full-time job as assistant manager at a storage facility and moved Yardie Ting into the market.

Her restaurant has endured in the venue, even as her fellow vendors open and close sometimes in just a few months’ time. Yardie Ting moved downstairs to a larger space in September. It now takes up about three-quarters of the first floor, giving them 30 seats and room for a feature Wright-Williams has long wanted to add: a small market section selling Jamaican pantry staples.

“People who have travelled to Jamaica and became fans of Jamaican foods, they’re coming in and purchasing groceries that they tried in Jamaica,” Wright-Williams said, noting that while she launched her market late this year, she expects it to draw even more business next season when Jamaican migrant workers arrive back at Portland hotels.

Deborah Mrema plays egg on a spoon at the Jamaican Independence Day Festival Independence at Deering Oaks Park earlier this year. Sofia Aldinio/ Staff Photographer

CONNECTING WITH LOCALS

This August marked the ninth annual Jamaican Independence Day Festival at Deering Oaks Park. Wright-Williams and her husband Jake Williams – chef at Yardie Ting since 2021 – have spearheaded the event from the beginning. “That’s when you really get to see the Jamaican community,” Wright-Williams said. “Everybody comes out and we just have a ball.”

Wright-Williams and Williams used to be regulars at the downtown restaurant Federal Spice, a popular social hub for Portland’s Jamaican community until it closed in 2018. “Ever since that restaurant closed down, that sense of community kind of just fell apart,” Wright-Williams said. “Which was one of the main reasons we wanted to come downstairs (in the Public Market), to have space for folks to come in and gather and feel included.”

For some Jamaicans, Yardie Ting now serves just that purpose. “When I first moved here, I didn’t know any Jamaicans at all,” said Scott. “We don’t have a large Jamaican community, and that restaurant has been a central point for bringing the Jamaican community together, especially for newcomers who don’t know how to navigate.”

Beyond bonding with fellow Jamaicans, the restaurateurs also believe their venues serve as a kind of unofficial cultural outreach program, a hospitable and delicious way to connect with locals.

“As soon as we go in one of these small cities and we see there is not a lot of people from our country, it’s best to educate the people around you, because you’re going to be walking around them anyways and they don’t know who you are,” said Jenkins of Caribbean Taste. “It’s good to educate people about your culture.”

Jenkins said the trick is sometimes just getting people to try the food in the first place. Some of her customers know Jamaican food to some extent because they’ve vacationed on the island, but others might not know a jerk from a twerk.

“I know people who say, ‘I always see the place, and I want to stop, I just don’t know what’s over there,’ ” Jenkins said. “Once they come in, I have them try the oxtail or the jerk chicken or whatever, and they’re like, ‘I’m coming back for dinner with my family.'”

Jamaican dishes are often hearty and comforting, featuring fragrant, flavorful spice blends with captivating allure.

“I wasn’t really familiar with Jamaican food other than jerk dishes before I started frequenting Yardie Ting,” said Dan O’Connell of Portland, who has eaten there weekly for the past few years. “I usually just listen to the owners’ suggestions about things I should try, and so far they haven’t steered me wrong yet. Everything has been delicious. I like the coconut curry a lot in the winter, since it always warms me up.”

Yardie Ting chef Jake Williams finishes a plate of oxtails. The restaurant moved downstairs and expanded in the Public Market this year and now takes up most of the first floor. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

HEALTHIER ALTERNATIVE

Walton Wray, who opened Kool Runnins in South Paris in August, wanted to provide his community with Jamaican food as a healthier alternative to fast-food meals.

“When I first came here five-and-a-half years ago, and I was basically suffering food-wise,” Wray recalled. “I lived in Bryant Pond, and all I could find everywhere around me was pizza and burgers. And you know, I’m Jamaican – I’m not used to fast food, I’m used to cooked meals. So it really affected me mentally and physically.

“I’m like, whoa, ‘How do people survive here? How much burger can you eat?’ It’s so unhealthy,” he added. “It really kept me up nights, worrying about people here.”

Wray had no professional training as a chef, but was an avid home cook. When he first moved to Maine, he was a construction worker. He’d cook his own lunch and bring it to work and share with his friends.

“For me, it’s really about changing people’s lifestyle here more than anything else,” Wray said. “Now I have customers that testify that since they’ve been eating my food and cutting back on burgers and pizza, they have been losing weight. It’s beautiful.”

Mainers make up practically Wray’s entire customer base at Kool Runnins, which, he notes with amusement, is located next to a McDonald’s. “I’m not depending on Jamaicans because there are no Jamaicans here to support my business.”

Wray said he’s gotten some great feedback from customers.

“People will shake my hand and say, ‘I was reluctant to try, but I’m a convert now, a customer for life,'” he said. “When you come from another country, and people thank you for what you’re bringing them and they’re telling you they need you – I’m not making any money yet, but that makes you feel good as a human being.”

Coconut Curry Stew

Serves 2 

This dish is a staple on Yardie Ting’s menu. Shanna-Kay Wright-Williams suggests including chopped fresh garlic or adding a dash of cayenne pepper for an extra boost of flavor.

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 cup canned chickpeas, drained

1 carrot, diced

1 small onion, diced

1 ½ teaspoons curry power

1 (13.5-ounce) can coconut milk

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 tomato, diced

Sprig of thyme

1 green onion, thinly sliced, to garnish

Add the oil to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the chickpeas, carrot, onion and curry powder; cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes.

Add the coconut milk, bell pepper, tomato and thyme to the pan. Season the stew with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Remove from heat, scatter with green onion slices. Serve with white rice.