Caribbean Businesses

Though Afro-Caribbeans make up a small percentage of the Atlanta areas residents, their presence is evident: Caribbean restaurants, bakeries, newspapers, festivals, and cricket teams can now be found throughout the metro area. Caribbean businesses play an important role, as not only forms of self-employment and entrepreneurship for Afro-Caribbean immigrants in Atlanta, but also as markers of Caribbean ethnicity. These businesses are key sites of the Caribbean immigrant experience in Atlanta. They provide services and products that help Afro-Caribbeans adapt to living in Atlanta. They also help develop and promote a Caribbean Atlanta community by providing information about Caribbean events and businesses in the area. Many of the Caribbean restaurants and shops carry magazines and flyers that promote other Caribbean events and businesses in the Atlanta area.

It is an adjustment at first for migrants especially for those who lived in cities with large established Caribbean communities, such as New York, where Afro-Caribbeans are able to get any and everything from the region. As the population grows, Caribbean goods and services are becoming more available. Local businesses are recognizing the presence of the growing Caribbean community and are reaching out to them. Kroger, one of the largest grocery chains in Atlanta (and the region), now caters to Caribbean costumers by providing Caribbean products. Over the last 10 years, Caribbean products, such as oxtail, snapper fish, or plantains, became available in the local chain supermarkets in the Atlanta area. Florence, who migrated to Atlanta in 1993, described how Caribbean food items (and other ethnic foods) have become more and more available with the influx of immigrants into the city. She stated, “When I first arrived, you had to go to a specialized market, like the DeKalb Farmer’s Market. I think as the Asian, African, and Caribbean communities demanded more food; the supermarkets expanded their selections to include more ethnic foods.” The availability of Caribbean products is important to the Caribbean immigrant experience and maintenance of a Caribbean identity in Atlanta. Sociologist Tamara Mose Brown (2011) found in her study of West Indian nannies in Brooklyn that the cooking and eating of Caribbean dishes helped them maintain ties to their Caribbean heritage and form communities among each other. Afro-Caribbeans in the study have pointed to food as one of the main ways that they stayed connected to their culture on an everyday basis since they migrated to Atlanta. Having access to Caribbean foods was especially important for the migrants. Many told me that being to able to cook and eat traditional Caribbean dishes helped make Atlanta feel more like home. Anthony, who migrated to Atlanta in 1994, explained to me why access to Caribbean products and foods were important to his life in Atlanta. He stated: “The availability of Caribbean products plays a very important role in my satisfaction with Atlanta because it was something I was used to in New York growing in a Caribbean family. In New York, I was used to Caribbean scenery and cuisine. With it being available here, it gives me great satisfaction.”

Most of the Caribbean businesses in the region are restaurants. Stone Mountain is home to many of the Caribbean restaurants in the Atlanta area. Memorial Drive’s strip has 5 or 6 Caribbean restaurants within a few miles of each other, including Kool Runnings and Royal Caribbean bakery, a popular bakery in the Atlanta area that was transplanted from New York. Several of my respondents recommended to me Tassi’s Roti Shop, which was an Indo-Trinidadian-owned restaurant on the eastside of Atlanta in Marietta, a city in Cobb County. It is one of the only Trinidadian restaurants in the Atlanta area. This reflects the growing diversity of the area, since Cobb County, like other northern counties in metro Atlanta, was formerly an all-white suburb that has recently become more diverse with the influx of immigrants and African Americans to the area (Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008b). Caribbean restaurants, like Tassa’s Roti Shop, are playing a significant part in the transformation of the area’s cultural landscape. Though the majority of the Caribbean restaurants are found in Stone Mountain and other suburban areas, there are few other restaurants in the city proper that are marking the group’s presence.[1]

Caribbean restaurants are key sites of the Caribbean experience in Atlanta. They play a major part in helping migrants adjust to their new lives in Atlanta by providing not only Caribbean products and foods, but also a space for Afro-Caribbeans to meet compatriots and learn about Caribbean events and services in the area. Typically, inside these restaurants, near the register or the entrance, there are large numbers of business cards for Caribbean-owned companies, flyers and other materials announcing local Caribbean events, and Caribbean-focused newspapers providing information about the region and the Caribbean community in Atlanta. The major Caribbean newspaper in the area is Caribbean Star. Founded in 1992, the Caribbean-focused news magazine publishes biweekly and is free for all residents of the Atlanta metro area. The Caribbean Star can be found in other cities with large Caribbean populations, including New York.

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[1] The Caribbean restaurants in the city include Calypso Café and Grill, Afrodish Restaurant, and The Original Jamaican Restaurant in the downtown area, Stir It Up in Little Five Points, and Taste of Tropical in the West End.