Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery, Inc. is a

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

Fast casual restaurant operator and manufacturer of Caribbean cuisine including Jamaican food, Jamaican patty, and other baked goods. The parent company is owned by the Hawthorne family, and the stores are franchised. There are over 100 Golden Krust restaurants operating in ten U.S. states:

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Texas. The majority of the restaurants are situated in New York. The company also distributes food products to retailers, schools and prisons, and is considered the foremost Jamaican business in the U.S. It is also "the only company that makes and distributes nine varieties of Jamaican-style patties."

History

Golden Krust's origins trace back to a 50-year-old bakery owned by Ephraim Hawthorne in Saint Andrew, Jamaica, that serves "family recipes". Ephraim's son Lowell Hawthorne, Golden Krust's former President and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

, opened the first U.S. restaurant in 1989 on Gun Hill Road in the Bronx. To open its first restaurant, the Hawthorne family pooled $107,000, "using the Caribbean concept of susu, whereby everyone pitched in $100 a week to raise start-up money after banks refused them a loan." Jamaica's ambassador to the United States was present for the opening of the chain's fifth store in Atlanta, Georgia.Golden Krust Opens Fifth Restaurant in Atlanta
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Jamaica Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Foreign Trade The parent company later became involved in the financial services industry. Hawthorne came to New York in 1981 and graduated from

Bronx Community College The Bronx Community College of the City University of New York (BCC) is a public community college in the Bronx, New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. History The college was established in 1957 through the eff ...

before working as an accountant with the

New York Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

for nine years. Nine brothers and sisters are involved in the family business. Lowell Hawthorne was found dead of

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

on December 2, 2017, aged 57, inside a Golden Krust factory in the Bronx. His death was mourned by many including former employees, colleagues and Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Hawthorne was previously featured on the CBS reality television show '' Undercover Boss'' in 2016.

s, and curried meat dishes.AJP page M3 May 8, 2009 India Abroad Items served include callaloo (Caribbean greens) and ackee. In 1998 the company produced 25 million flaky burnt-orange patties on assembly lines at its main facility. The restaurants do a lot of take-out business, as the patties are portable, and also distributes to supermarkets in 30 states. Offerings include beef patty, vegetable patty, spicy beef and cheese patty, soy patty, oxtail,

curried goat (''hseik-tha hnat'') hi, Bakri curry id, kari kambing ms, kari kambing , country = Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia , region = Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Indonesia and Malaysia) and the Caribbean (Tri ...

, brown stew chicken, roti filled with curried meat or vegetables, and "coco" bread.

West Indian community

The eateries have drawn interest from the West Indian community Many of its original franchises were opened by nurses, and many stores are opened near hospitals where many workers are West Indian with Caribbean heritage. Core customers come from Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados,

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

, The Bahamas, St. Lucia, and

Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pe ...

. The chain started out serving Caribbean immigrants, but customers now includes Americans of any national ancestry. The type of food served is "becoming more and more familiar to all Americans thanks to holidays taken in

Aruba Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...

, Jamaica, or Trinidad and Tobago, or through meeting at work people from these islands and others." By 2009, there were plans to open an additional 250 stores over the next five years in the U.S., Europe, Canada, and the Caribbean.

Operations

The restaurants do mostly take-out and have limited seating. The decor is decorated in bright "sunny" yellow and orange tiles. Competing patty producers include Tower Isles Frozen Foods in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which sells more than 100,000 patties a day to supermarkets, convenience stores, delis and pizza shops that bake them on site, and Caribbean Food Delights, which makes 250,000 a day at a factory in Tappan, N.Y. "for sale at major supermarkets and warehouse chains, including Costco, Wal-Mart and Pathmark." In August 2016, the company announced plans to move and consolidate all its operations to Orangeburg, New York, near the Caribbean Food Delights location. The Hawthornes hope to add the Jamaican patty to the list of American ethnic fast foods alongside the Italian

pizza Pizza (, ) is a dish of Italian origin consisting of a usually round, flat base of leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomatoes, cheese, and often various other ingredients (such as various types of sausage, anchovies, mushrooms, onions ...

slice, Jewish bagel, and the

Chinese noodle Chinese noodles vary widely according to the region of production, ingredients, shape or width, and manner of preparation. Noodles were invented in China, and are an essential ingredient and Staple food, staple in Chinese cuisine. They are an im ...

. The company uses a rising sun logo and has a city contract to serve lunches to prison inmates and schoolchildren.

Media

The chain was featured on the US version of Undercover Boss in episode 12 of season 7 in 2016.

References

External links