Taste A Yaad Restaurant – White Bay, Jamaica

Dwight had a nightmare that forced him to flee Babylon, the name many Jamaicans gave to the capital, Kingston, and move to the country. With no capital to invest, he decided to “try something” and set up a kitchen shop called “Taste A Yaad Restaurant” on the sandy White Bay beach in Trelawny, Jamaica.

Walking along White Bay from the Breezes Hotel in the west, I passed rows of armchairs full of bodies baking in the morning sun before I came across a small complex of craft shops jutting out of the mangrove forest towards the southern edge of the beach. These huts are typical of those found near the tourist centers of Jamaica. A couple of vendors greeted me, trying to start a sale with something like “Good morning, Mon! Take a look at me …”, but I kept walking as I had seen and heard everything before, and I had a date. meet Brian, an instructor, for my first kitesurfing lesson later on on that fabulous white sand beach.

After a few hundred meters, I stopped in my tracks when I saw Dwight, clean-haired and combed, raking the beach in front of his establishment, the “Taste A Yaad Restaurant.” My curiosity overcame my enthusiasm for my kitesurfing lesson, and I stopped to speak with Dwight, who gave me a tour of his place of business, which was built in the shade of tall trees in an area that led away from the beach towards a clear among the mangroves.

As I followed him in and out of the sun’s rays filtering through the branches above, I noticed that the main building materials were branches cut from the mangroves and scraps of used wood and plywood boards that Dwight had collected and recycling. Chairs and benches were built from mangrove branches, bent and nailed in place. An old rusty sheet of metal was turned into a table and a shooting board pattern was painted.

The main building was the store and kitchen with a gallery containing two dining tables and chairs, all covered with zinc and a blue plastic sheet to protect from the rain. At the rear of this building, out of sight of his customers, Dwight had erected a support for a large plastic drum to gravity feed his water supply to the kitchen. Further back and to one side was a very small building with walls of sticks planted in the sand. Dwight opened the door to show me an amazing working porcelain toilet, the water supply of which was also gravity fed from another raised plastic drum at the back of this structure. He had also prepared an ordinary plastic bowl and a tap as a sink with running water.

With a little paint, mostly in the bright colors red, yellow and green, Dwight decorated his establishment and hand painted his sign. He also used seashells and painted bottles that he partially buried in the sand and hung on ropes. And for the child in all of us, he tied a piece of wood to the end of a rope and hung it from a tall tree, providing simple fun in a fabulous setting. From everywhere in Dwight’s “Taste A Yaad” restaurant, you had a fabulous view of the turquoise Caribbean Sea at White Bay.

Dwight’s hard work, attention to detail, and care for his clients were vividly displayed in his clean and tidy place of business. That he could create such an attractive environment with so little was truly extraordinary and a pleasure to behold. I could have spent all day there talking to Dwight, but my kitesurfing lesson called, so I pulled away and vowed to come back for lunch.