Nostrand Avenue Restaurant Row - Updates
SoulBK Closes and Yummy's Opens
For some time it seemed that SoulBK was in trouble. The place opened about a year and a half ago with five partners. Kevin Walters was the CEO and the four others had various roles to play. Rosa Jackson worked on the menu along with her husband Bruce Johnson. Glen Williams did the design of the place and later acted as music manager and DJ when Terence Fisher left early on. Then Glen left and was replaced by Patrick Walter, Kevin's brother. Patrick was to deal with technical issues such as the website and communications. So the partnership was fraying presumably from a lack of financial success. SoulBK was supposed to be the model for a franchise. Early on Rosa told me that she would love to open a restaurant in Jamaica where she came from to prove to everyone there that she had a good head for business. At a gathering to support the Restaurant Row concept in the spring, Kevin announced that next year we would be meeting at new restaurant in the Caribbean. Yet it seemed that there were problems with forming a menu and pricing. To many people, the prices seemed to be high. A menu we published in the winter had appetizers going from $13 to $19 and entrees going from $23 up to $52, the latter for a ribeye steak and $44 for stuffed salmon. So an appetizer, entree, drink and dessert could be somewhere near $100. This would not be casual dining. Also there were sometimes questions about quality and efficiency. On more than one occasion I heard patrons complain about their food and on another I was there when someone waited 45 minutes to get an order he needed to take with him to a late night job. The first problem seemed to be that the restaurant did not find the right mix to keep customers coming back regularly.
One way of dealing with the problems was to focus more on catering and events. There were plenty of these – birthdays, weddings, anniversaries. Three of the largest I witnessed were Kwanza Crawl, Brooklyn Legal Services, and a party for Black Google workers. These were all large successes but did not make for a steady stream of income. I would suppose that the question of staffing must have come up. The big events needed a lot of staff, but the day-to-day operations of the restaurant did not. It might be a dependence grew on temporary workers. Another way of trying to deal with the lack of customers was through entertainment. Many acts were brought in, and starting in January, Monday nights were set aside for Ronnie Burrage's organization Music of the Black Experience. He produced evenings with major figures in the jazz world along with jam sessions in which his students from Brooklyn College participated. Some nights got a decent crowd and some nights did not, and the Monday night slot was already a strike against the program. Recently the program was canceled.
Kevin Walters has always been someone who has lots of ideas. It may be that he is better at moving along to something new than doubling down to solve problems. There was the question of appealing to a young audience versus an older one, making the restaurant work versus events and catering, figuring out the right kind of entertainment. Many things were tried, perhaps not as intensely as they might have been.
Photo of the entrance to Yummy's
However, now SoulBK is gone. The partnership was dissolved Kevin says with no animosity, and Kevin has on moved on to something else. Now the site will be Yummy's. The owner will be Keith Bryant, a chef with long experience with restaurants, along with a partner. Kevin will be manager. I spoke with Keith in the new place and found out a bit about him. He comes from New Rochelle and has been interested in restaurants since he was a teenager and got a job as a dishwasher in an Italian restaurant. He lives in Harlem and also still has a place in New Rochelle. He has many other interests in the restaurant industry. For example, he does catering for Meta at the World Trade Center Hotel. He is preparing a new menu, some items of which were on display at an introductory event on August 31, when there was complimentary food, drink, and music available from 12 noon to 10pm. The event began with a cold noodle mixture and salad and many small samples of shrimp or beef on mashed, sweet potato, and more. A fruit drink was on offer spiked perhaps with white wine though it was hard to taste. There was a steady stream of curious coming to find out about the new place.
Photo of the staff at the August 31 event
A Grand Opening will follow on September 7th. The place will have a whole new look. Keith has an architect, Mynette, who is creating a different atmosphere with yellow walls and artwork that looks like a piece of nature with lots of leafy greenery. The atmosphere is warmer, less like a night club. Keith told me he has hired 42 people to staff the place, from sou-chefs on down to busboys and every position in between. There will be no question that the restaurant will be anything other than the base of the operation. However, they also do intend to do events and catering. He will be working with a well known pastry chef named Laura DiJourno, who specializes in fine French pastry. Keith himself is an accomplished chef and will be overseeing the kitchen. I told Keith about the Restaurant Row idea. He seemed to like it, but I think he was hearing about it for the first time. SoulBK specialized in Caribbean and southern American food, particularly the cuisine of New Orleans. Keith would seem to have a broader outlook; he mentioned maybe doing a Cornish Hen or an Italian recipe. I got the feeling there will be a lot of experimenting to see what catches on.
Picture of Kevin and Keith
So Kevin has come up with a new idea. In the partnership he was the leader of a group of five. Now he will be acting as a manager to give advice and follow the lead of someone else. It would seem the two have a good working relationship. Keith said he and Kevin moved in the same group of people in Harlem, and he has a lot of respect for a place that Kevin ran there. So they know each other and would seem to like and respect each other. We can only wish them well and keep an eye on how things develop.
– John DeWind
