Purple People Eater inspires Jam'It Bistro interview

from Red Hook Star-Revue, November 2023

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While I was distributing the Star-Revue last month, a purple plant outside of Jam’It Bistro, 367 Columbia Street, caught my eye. After going inside and dropping off papers, I chatted about the plant with Dawn Skeete, who opened up Jam’It in 2019.

I went back later and in addition to finding out about the purple haze, I spoke to Skeete about her experience as a restaurant owner in the neighborhood.

Skeete is Jamaican by birth but grew up in east Brooklyn before moving to Westbury, Long Island.

“Opening up a restaurant wasn’t something I always planned to do,” Skeete said. “I worked for TIAA CREF for 17 years and in my later years there I was a management consultant. The company then made the move to Charlotte, North Carolina and I didn’t want to make that move.

“My family has always been in the restaurant business here in New York. We had a property on Nostrand Avenue and my husband ended up deciding to open up a restaurant there. So when the company moved, rather than looking for another job in corporate America, I decided to get into the restaurant business.”

Jam’It Bistro opened in February of 2019, and while Skeete initially had a lot of support in Red Hook, the restaurant has survived some difficult times in its four years.

by Brian Abate

“For the first three months there was a lot of support from the community but after that, the love affair began to die, and the support from the community wasn’t there like it was before,” Skeete said. “Then COVID came, and I’m honestly not sure how we made it through the pandemic.”

When Jam’It opened, Skeete relied on customers coming in for meals for about 80 percent of the restaurant’s earnings while the other 20 percent came from catering.

“We had to start looking at some of the factors that caused a decrease in business,” Skeete said. “One thing was some people complained about prices but the prices were comparable to other businesses in the neighborhood when we studied them, especially considering the amount of food we were providing. I think a big part of it is we have Caribbean food and there aren’t many Caribbean people in the neighborhood.

“When things were really difficult during the pandemic, Susan Povich from Lobster Pound came in and asked how she could help me keep my doors open. From that conversation along with talking to local leader Jacqui Painter, I was introduced to World Central Kitchen [a not-for-profit nongovernmental organization devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters.] A contract with them has allowed me to provide service as a catering company. I had to re-think the business model and now the restaurant has made a pivot so we’re 80 percent catering and 20 percent foot traffic.”

In addition to relying more on catering, Skeete is planning on making foods like tacos and sandwiches since some customers said they preferred smaller meals. The hope is that more customers will get those smaller meals for lunch.

It's called Purple Heart

Skeete also told me the backstory to the purple plant which initially caught my attention. Another customer looked up the plant and found out that it’s called a purple heart. “I was in here one day and my neighbor next door came in and she asked me if it would be ok for her to put her unwanted plants in the flower pot out front,” Skeete said. “I didn’t even know what the heck she was talking about so I just told her ‘Yes, go ahead.’ When I went out and looked, I thought to myself ‘Why would she dump her dying plants in my flower pot.’

“I forgot about it and then maybe a month or two later that unwanted purple plant bloomed and it produced these beautiful pink flowers. She came back and actually transplanted the plant into the rest of the pots. I’ve never seen anything like it before, but I’m hoping it’s a sign of good things to come. We’re still here and we’re just hoping that community will support us and help us stay open.”

The Tipsy Grape Wine Bar is providing Carroll Gardens with great wines and great music.

“I’m not originally from the neighborhood but my partner Zura used to come here for the restaurants on Smith St.,” said Alex Golant, co-owner of Tipsy Grape. “There’s also Clover Club which is a famous cocktail place that we liked and used to go to a lot. We’ve been coming here for over ten years and when it came time to open the wine bar, we looked here on Smith St. first.”

Both Golant and Zura work together as attorneys and both enjoy going out to eat or going to Clover Club in their free time. At first, they were looking to open a restaurant but about five months ago they decided on a wine bar instead.

“Another factor was that Zura is actually from Georgia, [the country next to Russia]” said Golant. He brought back a really good bottle of wine from Georgia and gave it to a friend of ours. Some time went by and then this friend’s wife tried it, loved it, and asked where to buy it. We had to say ‘You can’t buy it here’ because Georgia does not real-

by Brian Abate

ly import much wine into the U.S. After that we thought if people love the wine then we should sell it here.

“One of the big things is we didn’t want this to be a place for only people with extensive knowledge of wines. This is a place where we want everyone to feel welcome and comfortable coming in. We want to make sure everyone has a good time even if they aren’t coming in with a lot of knowledge about wines.”

I sampled a glass of saperavi, which is a red wine and it was sweet and smooth.

“A lot of people haven’t heard of it before but once they try it, they love it,” Golant said. “Saperavi grapes are exclusive to the country of Georgia and Georgia has a very long history of winemaking. It actually goes back 8,000 years and the original winemaking was using saperavi grapes. Also, our wines here are natural which means biodynamic, sustainable, and organic because that’s the tradition in Georgia. It’s been very rewarding having customers getting to know Georgian wines and responding so well to them.”

Golant recommended Chateau Buera, which is also from Georgia and his personal favorite. In addition to wines, Tipsy Grape also has live jazz music every evening from 7 to 9:30.

“We get to experience it firsthand, we see them putting their heart into it, and then we get to share it with the neighborhood,” Zura said “It’s been great seeing people enjoy the atmosphere here,” Golant said. “The musicians have reached out to us and we’ve been able to develop a small following in the jazz community. A lot of it is through word of mouth. The most heartwarming thing is most of the musicians we have are people who live around the neighborhood. Usually, the musicians get most of their gigs in the city so they don’t have a chance for steady gigs here. A lot of times they can play in front of friends and family, so that’s been a great experience for us.” While there have been a lot of positives, there have also been some challenges.

“We didn’t realize how busy we would be after opening up here until we experienced it for ourselves,” Golant said. “We’ve been learning as we go but we’ve been managing.”

“There are a lot of little details and no matter how much you prepare, there will always be some problems that come up,” Zura said.

Both Golant and Zura still work at their law firm (Golant Legal Group) where they are partners and begin their work day there, doing estate planning and estate administration. Afterward, they come to Tipsy Grape and check in on the musicians to make sure they are creating a nice atmosphere.

“A lot of artists have been priced out of Manhattan and one of our hopes is to create a music venue and a good community here for artists, especially those who have been struggling,” Golant said.

Though Tipsy Grape has only been open for a few months, it is already becoming an important part of the community.