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Choosing family-owned and minority businesses, like Black-owned shops and restaurants, can help boost the local economy and support equality. Nothing beats the unique atmosphere and customer service offered by small family-owned restaurants, which often contribute richly to their communities. Keith Pierson Toyota wants to support the Jacksonville community by providing this list of local Black-owned restaurants.
Cool Moose Cafe
Cool Moose Cafe is a popular family-owned and -operated coffee shop that serves breakfast all day long, a selection of cold and hot sandwiches, and fresh-baked cookies and pastries. The menu has standard breakfast fare, like egg plates, omelets, and bagel sandwiches. You can get pancakes, French toast, waffles, or chicken and waffles. The menu’s healthy choices section features egg whites and turkey sausage combinations.
Lunch items highlight a variety of sandwiches, pitas, and panini. Kids’ breakfast and lunch meals include choices like silver dollar pancakes, grilled cheese, or macaroni and cheese. Try one of the cafe’s specialty grilled cheeses, like the avocado delight with American and sharp cheddar cheese, avocado, and smoked bacon. Sandwiches come with sides like garlic fries, sweet potato fries, or broccoli. The Cool Moose Cafe has a variety of coffees, iced coffee, and hot teas. Other beverages include wine, beer, mimosas, and bloody marys, with special 2-for-1 cocktail pricing on weekends.
The cozy ambiance makes you feel right at home, and most menu items are $10.99 or less. You’ll find Cool Moose cafe at 2708 Park St. in Jacksonville.
Soul Food Express
Soul Food Express is a family-owned restaurant in Jacksonville serving mouthwatering comfort food. With a menu highlighting West African cuisine and traditional Southern soul food, Soul Food Express’s home-cooked meals will satisfy your deepest cravings.
The menu reads like a choose-your-own-adventure book, where the customer starts by choosing between white or yellow rice as a bed for your protein choice. Next, pick a protein option from the many meat or seafood options. You may select turkey wings, fried pork chops, or favorites like oxtail or barbecue rib meat. Shrimp, crab, fresh fish, and fillets make up the seafood choices.
After selecting the main course, you’ll choose two sides, such as lima beans, field peas, or tossed salad. Premium sides include candied yams, collard greens, or hearty macaroni and cheese. Finish your meal selection with cornbread or sweet house bread to dip into your sauces. You may not have enough room for dessert, but if you can take one or two of the many desserts home to sample, the pineapple pound cake or sweet potato pie is delicious.
Most entrees range in price from $13-$20, and you’ll get a hearty portion for your money. Soul Food Express is located at 1227 E. 21st St. in Jacksonville.
Caribbean Paradise Restaurant
Tasty Jamaican Island cuisine is the focus at Caribbean Paradise Restaurant. The extensive menu has everything from appetizers to hearty entrees and delectable desserts. With specialties like stewed oxtail, goat, and saltfish, the delicious offerings at this restaurant will keep you coming back for more of their unique selection and robust flavors.
If you’re not sure what to order from the extensive menu, try the Jamaican-style jerk chicken with rice, vegetables, and fried plantains. Other popular home-style Jamaican entrees include seasoned oxtail meat on a bed of rice, slathered in gravy, and a stewbeef meal with vegetables. Besides the fried plantain, other excellent sides include seasoned cabbage and boiled Jamaican dumplings. The boiled banana is a sweet, authentic island treat. You can also choose from wings, macaroni and cheese, and fresh soup with chicken, fish, and vegetables.
The restaurant features several homemade drinks, including ginger beer or the Jamaican sorrel drink, a robust concoction made from the sorrel tree with a tart cranberry flavor. Desserts include cornmeal pudding, rum cake, and several cake choices.
Most entrees range in price from $8-$15, and extra sides are available for $3.50. You can visit Caribbean Paradise at 900 Dunn Ave., Suite 14, Jacksonville.
Ken’s Kitchen
The husband-and-wife team Ken and Daniele of Ken’s Kitchen aims to serve traditional Southern food with a modern twist. Their “food fusion” concept is to use original dishes and flavors to create unique flavor combinations.
The menu features breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breakfast is available all day Saturday and until 10:30 a.m. Tuesday through Friday. Breakfast has several grab-and-go items like breakfast sandwiches, pitas, and wraps. Breakfast entrees include traditional egg plates and omelets, French toast, and pancakes. Southern specialties include the Azar or Georgia smoked sausage platter, a breakfast bowl with eggs and grits, or shrimp and grits with andouille sausage.
Lunch choices include wings, smoked sausage sandwiches, and a variety of delicious burger combinations. One original favorite is the spicy pimento burger, topped with homemade pimento cheese and jalapenos. Or try one of Ken’s original fusion foods, Burnt Ends Grilled Cheese, which layers burnt barbecue ends and homemade pimento cheese on Texas toast. You might enjoy juicy meatloaf, a fish and shrimp combination plate, barbecue ribs, or rib tips for dinner. You can also get oxtails with rice and gravy.
Most breakfast and lunch items cost from $4 to $12, and dinner prices generally range from $10 to$18. Visit Ken’s Kitchen at 11230 New Berlin Road in Jacksonville. The restaurant is open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Sweet Mama’s Southern Homestyle Cookin
Check out Sweet Mama’s Southern Homestyle Cookin in Jacksonville for hearty, homestyle Southern food. This homey diner even features a chalkboard listing the day’s specials.
Start your meal with a yummy appetizer of gizzards or corn nuggets. Dinner entrees include fried chicken, gizzards, fish, and ribs. You can choose to get pork chops pan-seared or deep-fried, and a customer favorite is the delicious oxtail dinner. Macaroni and cheese and sweet butter biscuits make great sides to complement your meal at Sweet Mama’s, but you can also choose collard greens, lima beans, rice, or various other sides.
Most items range in price from $7 to $14. Sweet Mama’s is located at 1527 Cesery Blvd.
Which of these Black-owned Jacksonville restaurants is your favorite? Let us know if we missed your favorite so that we can include it in a future recommendation list.
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