Golden Krust

Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery, Inc.is aCaribbeanfast casual restaurantoperator and manufacturer ofCaribbean cuisineincludingJamaican food,Jamaican patty, and other baked goods.
The parent company is owned by the Hawthorne family, and the stores arefranchised. There are over 100 Golden Krust restaurants operating in nine U.S. states:New York,New Jersey,Connecticut,Georgia,Florida,Maryland,North Carolina,Massachusetts, andTexas. The majority of the restaurants are situated in New York.It is New York City's largest locally-owned restaurant chain.
The company also distributes food products to retailers, schools and prisons, is considered the foremost Jamaican business in the U.S.and was featured on theCBSreality television showUndercover Bossin 2016.
Golden Krust's origins trace back to a 50-year-oldbakeryowned by Ephraim Hawthorne inSaint Andrew, Jamaica, that claims to serve family recipes.Ephraim's sonLowell Hawthorne, Golden Krust's formerPresidentandCEO, opened the first U.S. restaurant in 1989 onGun Hill Roadin the Bronx. To open its first restaurant, the Hawthorne family, according toBusiness Opportunities Journalpooled $107,000, "using the Jamaican concept ofsusu, whereby everyone pitched in $100 a week to raise start-up money after banks refused them a loan."
Jamaica's ambassador to the United States was present for the opening of the chain's fifth store inAtlanta, Georgiain 2009.
The parent company later became involved in the financial services industry.Hawthorne came to New York in 1981 and graduated fromBronx Community Collegebefore working as an accountant with theNew York Police Departmentfor nine years. As of 2005, nine brothers and sisters are involved in the family business.
Lowell Hawthorne was found dead ofsuicideon December 2, 2017, aged 57, inside a Golden Krust factory in the Bronx.He was in debt, faced tax liens in excess of $150,000, and a class-action lawsuit.Still, his death was mourned by many including former employees, colleagues and Jamaican Prime MinisterAndrew Holness.Hawthorne was previously featured on theCBSreality television showUndercover Bossin 2016.
Their restaurants serve mildly spicy, and hot,Jamaican patties,jerkchicken and fish,dumplings, steamedyams, and curried meat dishes.Items served includecallaloo(Caribbean greens) andackee.
In 1998 the company produced 25 million flaky burnt-orange patties on assembly lines at its main facility.The restaurants do a lot of take-out business, as the patties are portable, and also distributes to supermarkets in 30 states.Offerings include beef patty, vegetable patty, spicy beef and cheese patty,soypatty,oxtail,curried goat,brown stew chicken,rotifilled with curried meat or vegetables, and "coco" bread.
The eateries are a draw to theWest Indiancommunity.Many of its original franchises were opened by nurses, and many are opened near hospitals where many workers are West Indian with Caribbean heritage.Core customers come from Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago,Barbados,Haiti,The Bahamas,St. Lucia, andGrenada.
The chain started out serving Caribbean immigrants, but customers now includes Americans and immigrants of all national ancestries. The type of food served is "becoming more and more familiar to all Americans thanks to holidays taken inAruba, Jamaica, orTrinidad and Tobago, or through meeting at work people from these islands and others."By 2009, there were plans to open an additional 250 stores over the next five years in the U.S.,Europe,Canada, and the Caribbean.
The restaurants do mostly take-out and have limited seating. The decor is decorated in bright "sunny" yellow and orange tiles.Competing patty producers include Tower Isles Frozen Foods inBedford-Stuyvesant, which sells more than 100,000 patties a day to supermarkets, convenience stores, delis and pizza shops that bake them on site, and Caribbean Food Delights, which makes 250,000 a day at a factory inTappan, N.Y. "for sale at major supermarkets and warehouse chains, including Costco, Wal-Mart and Pathmark."In August 2016, the company announced plans to move and consolidate all its operations toOrangeburg, New York, near the Caribbean Food Delights location.
The Hawthornes hope to add the Jamaican patty to the list of American ethnic fast foods alongside theItalianpizzaslice,Jewishbagel, and theChinese noodle.The company uses a rising sunlogoand has a city contract to serve lunches to prison inmates and schoolchildren.
The chain was featured on theU.S. versionofUndercover Bossinepisode 12 of season 7in 2016.