Pat’s Kitchen:
A Grand Avenue staple

Manager Everett Lynfatt Jr., talks with customer Gorgeous Gore at his family’s restaurant "Pat’s Kitchen." Gore said she frequents the restaurant "whenever we go out" for food, and that her favorite foods are the "honey chicken wings and fried rice." Photo by Chelsea Matiash

When Everett Lyn Fatt Sr. and his wife, Patricia, moved from Kingston, Jamaica to set up their family business on Grand Avenue, they brought with them a proven recipe for success – pepper steak, fried shrimp and rice, wings and fries.

For more than three decades, the Fatts have provided Chinese Jamaican cuisine in the West Grove, a community that greeted them with skepticism when they first set up shop in 1978.

After settling with their five children in a neighborhood close to the Falls, Everett Fatt said they first opened Pat’s Kitchen, which is named after his wife, across the street from where the restaurant now stands at 3692 B Grand Ave.

People considered them outsiders because they were new to the area, and despite solid menu offerings, the Fatts did not feel welcomed in the community, particularly when someone took off the back hood of the family car.

“They didn’t like it because they thought I was a policeman, and they’d ask what we were doing in the neighborhood,” he said, even though they were leasing a restaurant that had been owned by a Jamaican.

Over time, the Fatts gained the trust of their customers by putting an emphasis on getting to know them and their families.

“This is the community, and they’re like part of the family, so we always just come here instead of going to other places within the area,” said Latondra Daily, who has been coming to the restaurant since she was a little girl. “It’s one of those staples that we do have to come to.”

“Mr. Bud,” an older customer who orders the garlic shrimp dinner, still recalls the days when the Fatts took over the original business, which just had a small window

“People would come from everywhere – Fort Lauderdale, Homestead – having a line from the Tiki Club all the way to that road over there,” he said.

When the building closed in 1985 after the owner lost the lease, Pat’s Kitchen moved to its current location where it sits in between a closed police athletic league gym and the Southwest Coconut Grove NET Service Center.

Although the business is mostly a take-out operation for specialty Chinese-Jamaican food ,Everett Fatt said he plans to make improvements to the interior, where bright red and yellow tables can accommodate 30 customers. He said he wants to print out menus, put paintings on the mostly barren walls and get the interior redone to attract more sit-down customers.

Four members of the family work at the restaurant, which is open Wednesday through Sunday. Hours are from 4 -11 p.m. on weekdays and 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. on weekends. The busiest times tend to be Friday and Saturday nights from 7 – 10 p.m., he said.

Pat’s Kitchen used to average around 100 to 200 customers a day, but a stagnant economy has cut its customer base to between 50 and 100 customers, if they are lucky.

“It’s slow now. It was pretty good in the older days,” Everett Fatt said. “There’s nobody around at lunchtime and business is very slow.”

Despite this, the Fatts find their answering machine bombarded with messages from customers on the days they are not open for business.

“Some days when we’d take vacations and stuff, we’d come back and there’d be a list of recordings asking where we’d been and ‘come back, come back,’” said Everett Jr., 42, the third of the Fatts’ five children. He and his father share the chef’s hat at the restaurant.

The neighborhood regulars are like family, said the elder Fatt who wants to intervene – but often doesn’t – when he sees some of his customers making poor lifestyle decisions.

“I see the kids having kids. I can’t talk to them. Say something to them and they say, ‘You’re not my dad, you’re not my mom.”

“Everything is different,” he added, referring to South Florida’s lifestyle. “I miss the lackadaisical life you live in Jamaica compared to here. The best thing is that you can make it here if you work hard, but you have to work hard,” said the senior Fatt, 67, who is following his wife, Patricia, 70, a year later into retirement.

The younger Fatt, who began working at the restaurant when he was in high school, says he knows all about the work-hard ethic. Married for six months, he and his wife, Raduca, are slowly started taking over the business.

“It’s very hard work,” he said. “It’s very stressful, but you have to get used to it. I grew up in the business already so I know what to expect. We’re friendly, we’re clean and the food is good.”

Cashier and cook Natalie Persaud prepared a serving of honey chicken wings, a popular dish at "Pat’s Kitchen." Photo by Chelsea Matiash