This new restaurant is saving customers the plane ticket and bringing all the authentic flavors of Jamaica straight to Palm Coast.
Island Flavaz Restaurant, located within Palm Coast’s City Market Place, is gearing up for its grand opening at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 1. For some, it’ll be their first time visiting. For others it’ll be a year-and-a-half-awaited return to the beloved restaurant.
Karen Green, a Jamaican native who runs the eatery alongside her daughter, Britney, originally opened shop in 2020 at 909 N. Ocean Shore Blvd. in Flagler Beach, the now Dolce De Leche Café, before closing its doors in 2022 following the effects of Hurricane Ian. Now, nearly two years later, the restaurateur is ready to re-open and chef up the flavors of home her loyal customers have long been craving.
“There’s no good Jamaican restaurant here in Palm Coast,” Green said. “The (closest) place I can get real food when I want it — I have to go to Fort Lauderdale or Orlando. So, I said, you know, people have been wanting something here,” making her decision to re-open shop a rather easy one.
Oxtail, jerk chicken and more at Island Flavaz Restaurant
The new restaurant boasts authenticity at its finest, Green tells me, keeping the spirit of Jamaican cuisine alive through its layered menu of returning comfort food favorites — plus several new items.
“We’re doing (our cooking) the traditional Jamaican way,” she said. “... Like, if I don’t have a dry coconut, I’m not going to use a canned coconut milk. I try to cook the same way (as in Jamaica), so I said, you know, let me just open up a restaurant and use my skill.”
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The eatery’s lunch and dinner offerings include oxtail — a trademark of the beloved restaurant’s menu; jerk chicken or jerk pork; fried or barbecue chicken; curry shrimp; and brown stew chicken, while sides include rice and peas "(kidney beans);" yellow vegetable rice; saltfish fritters; and fried dumplings.
According to Green, customers can rest assured that her jerk chicken, one of the restaurant’s most popular menu items, is the real deal.
“(You) cannot do it in the oven. They do it — that’s not jerk,” she said, noting that the seasoned dish is always cooked directly on the grill. “You don’t put jerk chicken into an oven — that’s baked chicken.”
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Island Flavaz Restaurant also offers a small pastry menu, featuring carrot cake; potato pudding; and beef, jerk chicken or vegetable patties, alongside several breakfast plates, including beef liver and kidney; ackee and saltfish — the Jamaican national dish, made from the ackee fruit (in the same family as lychee); cabbage and corned beef; and callaloo and saltfish, served with fried or steamed dumplings.
Callaloo, the restaurateur explained, is steamed and comparable to collard greens. After twice boiling the saltfish — typically cod, preserved through salt-curing, according to The Spruce Eats — it’s added to a pot where it's further cooked with oil and seasoning, including “your onion, your bell pepper, your scotch bonnet pepper — all of that — and tomato” until the callaloo is then combined.
“Cover the pot," often adding a little water, "and let it steam,” Green said. “... In Jamaica, we eat strong breakfast, not pancakes and eggs and all of that.”
Customers will also be able to look forward to new items, like rotating selections of the eatery’s porridge or soup of the day, as well as Jamaican beer and wine.
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As far as other beverages go, Island Flavaz boasts an extensive homemade juice and milk-based “punch” menu, including soursop punch — made from the tropical soursop fruit, native to the Caribbean; callaloo and ginger juice; and beetroot and carrot punch; as well as Jamaican sodas; fresh mint or lemongrass tea; and sorrel — a traditional, maroon-tinted drink made from the hibiscus flower and fresh ginger.
The making of Island Flavaz
Green, who owned a restaurant back in Jamaica for roughly four years, attributes her culinary knowledge to her grandmother, a Seventh-day Adventist, with whom she spent every Friday afternoon in the kitchen.
Seventh-day Adventists, she explained, honor what’s known as a holy day of rest by preparing their meals the day before the sabbath.
“Sunset is when their sabbath starts on Friday. So, she used to come home ... and she’s cooking and we’d be there helping her peel the potatoes, you know?” Green said. “They cook, they bake, they do everything on Friday for Saturday.”
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It was Green’s unwaveringlove for Jamaican flavors, as well as the lack of authentic cuisine in the area, that led to the original, and now the re-located, Island Flavaz Restaurant — vibrantly decorated with the colors and flag of Jamaica and variety of wall-hangings, including photos of Jamaican icons Bob Marley and Usain Bolt.
Bringing the eatery to life has been no small feat, the restaurateur noted, after having to start from scratch, installing a full kitchen, second bathroom, office space and tiling, not to mention painting the place all herself. After more than a year in the making, Green knows the restaurant's upcoming grand opening will be well worth the wait.
“We’re just trying to be the best Jamaican restaurant here, so we can please the customers,” Green said. “I built everything to get it the way I want it … I wanted to finish it the proper way.”
Island Flavaz Restaurant is located at 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Unit C-110, in Palm Coast. The restaurant will offer dine in, carry-out, curbside pickup and, eventually, delivery and will be open 7 a.m. – 9 p.m. daily. For information, call 386-225-4263 or visit facebook.com/IslandFlavaz909.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Island Flavaz Restaurant to open in Palm Coast
