In honor of Women's History Month, we're highlighting a handful of fiercely driven women restaurant owners in Richmond who are advocating for a vision beyond the business and beyond the plate. Stay tuned for more next week.
Owner Carena Ives stands in front of the forthcoming new location of Jamaica House restaurant at 416 W. Broad St. The 25-year-old eatery will move from its current location near VCU and reopen this spring. (Photo courtesy Carena Ives)
In 2019, Carena Ives celebrates 25 years of Jamaica House, the popular eatery at 1215 W. Broad St. and one of the first restaurants in Richmond to dish out authentic island flavors of jerk chicken and oxtail. Since the restaurant first opened, that area of Broad Street has been changing steadily, and Ives has watched as VCU and Richmond grew up around her and lines of customers continually spilled out her door. Ives, the mother of a 28-year-old son who's been working with her since he could count change at the register, understands that food connects. She views her customers as family, embodies a tenacious, positive energy, and has remained committed to charity efforts in her native Jamaica for the past 10 years.
Richmond magazine: Where did you grow up?
Carena Ives: I grew up in Jamaica in a small village about 7 miles from Ocho Rios. I came to the U.S. in 1986 when I was 17 and moved to Brooklyn. After three years reality hit that I didn’t have enough money [to stay], so I moved to Richmond with the idea of going to VCU.
RM: What made you stay in Richmond?
Ives: I liked the laid-back feel. Everyone was so friendly, and they look you in the eye. In Brooklyn nobody ever looked you in the eye, and here people would say "Hello," and I thought, "I don’t know why are you talking to me." [Laughs] It was so refreshing. By the time I was pregnant, I decided I could never go back to NYC.
RM: Did you ever envision owning a restaurant?
Ives: No, but the idea of owning a small business was never foreign to me. My dad had a bakery back home for 40 years, and my mother had a pub, and they did that all their life.
RM: What made you decide to open a restaurant?
Ives: When I got to Richmond, there was no Jamaican spots here, and I was craving curry chicken — that’s how the idea of Jamaica House started. I thought if I love it as much as I do, I know other people will, too.
RM: What was that initial experience of opening a restaurant like?
Ives: I had no clue what I was doing, and that sort of ignorance served me so well. I called my mother and said, "We have a stove," and she came down to help. She is the backbone, and her standard of food helped us and gave us our foundation. When we said were going to make oxtail, she said, "This is how you do it, this is the process, don’t deviate," and would taste it over and over. She stayed for two years until we figured it out.
RM: What was that area of the city like back then?
Ives: At the time nobody came to that neighborhood, even though it was so close to campus. It was run-down and dangerous, and nobody walked that block of Broad after 6 p.m.
RM: How did the community receive your food?
Ives: We had a small Jamaican community here of a few hundred people and a little following when we opened. I said to customers, "This is Southern food, just from the island," and it made it so relatable to people. When I thought about our curried chicken and how it's braised and tender with the gravy, this is very similar to smothered chicken and that sort of lovely feel of something that is tender and satisfying and full of flavor. I would tell them to pick it up with their fingers, put the fork down.
RM: How did that connection with the community affect you?
Ives: They didn’t have my dialect, but we had this deep connection because I recognized we are all the same. It was great. We were so close to campus, and the kids who came from New Jersey and Philadelphia and Connecticut, those kids found us and they were so happy, and kids from VUU and VSU because they heard about the Caribbean spot. All of the Caribbean kids from Jamaica and Trinidad and the Virgin Islands — they wanted that sort of comfort, and that's what we provided.
RM: When did you open your second business, Carena’s Jamaican Grille, and why?
Ives: We opened in 2007 because Jamaica House was so tiny. After all those years and customers that supported us and stayed with us no matter how hot or cold it was — I thought it would be a great idea to have a place where people can sit, relax, enjoy and bring their families.
RM: How does it feel to be leaving the current location? [Jamaica House is moving to a new location at 416 W. Broad St.]
Ives: It is breaking my heart. I bought the building a few years after we opened, maybe ’95 or ’96, and in 2002 I sold it to VCU. That wasn’t the thing I wanted to do, but did it during my divorce. There’s times in your life when you're turning a leaf and don’t know what’s on the other side. You can either be scared it will be nightmare-ish or embrace it and say you're going on another adventure. I have comfort in knowing I have the best customers and employees in Richmond, and whatever my venture is I’ll have those people along with me.
RM: What are the efforts you’ve been working on in Jamaica?
Ives: The name of the charity is called Children’s Medical Services International, CMSI, and [it's] focused on bringing medical supplies and services. A friend of mine told me about the founder, Billy Reed, and [Reed] came to Jamaica House and said, “I need you,” and I’ve been volunteering ever since — maybe 12 years now. We've taken hundreds of thousands of linens and supplies, you name it, recruited oncologists and surgical students and whoever we could find to volunteer and go down to the island … and consult with patients. The last couple years we have been doing pediatric trauma presentation seminars.
RM: How has it been returning to Jamaica after childhood?
Ives: What has become more apparent to me is the absolute overwhelming need of the people there, and what has become way more apparent is how poverty and loss of opportunity ravishes society and is happening there. It’s heartbreaking. It’s really sad, and you feel like no matter how much you do, it's never enough.
