Jerk Shack owner wants to expand, better serve black communities

The owner of the Jerk Shack in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood hopes to expand and be able to better serve the black community. Chef Trey Lamont told KIRO Radio’s Gee & Ursula Show that his idea is to bring fast-casual style Caribbean food to underserved neighborhoods, and be able to provide educational support, child care, and health benefits to employees.

“What we’re trying to do at the Jerk Shack is create a facility that we can purchase the land, and build facilities, kind of like a pop-up or shipping container build out that we can do fast-casual style Caribbean food in the neighborhoods that are underserved,” Lamont said. “And provide the same kind of services that Dick’s Drive-In does, and has always done, with giving a very, very great living wage, having scholarships for student employees, providing child care, and creating opportunities for them to have full health care.”

“There aren’t too many venues in the black and brown community in Seattle that do that at all,” he added. “And I think that will be a strength that I could help with. And it’s got to start somewhere.”

A Seattle bagel shop in the heart of CHOP is ‘hungry for justice’

The Jerk Shack serves Caribbean food with mostly Jamaican flavors, Lamont explained.

“But we do all types of Caribbean island food at the Jerk Shack,” he said. “… I’m born and raised here in Seattle, and on the West Coast, you can’t really get enough Caribbean food around here. If you go to the East Coast, you can get Caribbean food anywhere.”

Opening up the Jerk Shack was a “no-brainer” for Lamont because so many people from this area takes vacations to the Caribbean or other tropical destinations.

“When they come back to Seattle, they are confused as to where they can get that delicious food that they experienced on an island,” he said.

The Jerk Shack has started what they’re calling a Dinner Club during Phase 1.5 and Phase 2 in King County while they’re only allowed to operate at a limited capacity. Since the restaurant space with limits and proper spacing can only seat 50% of capacity, Lamont said it made sense to have one feeding a night.

“People reserve those seats by purchasing a dinner ticket,” he said. “And that menu changes weekly. … I have so many recipes that I can bring to the table that, until we can open up our capacity to 100%, we could have different items every week.”

On June 3, Lamont created a GoFundMe campaign to help meet his goals to expand Jerk Shack.

“This GoFundMe is a campaign to purchase land; it’s the Jerk Shack Land fund,” Lamont said.

Some of the possible locations for the Jerk Shack’s expansion include Renton, Rainier Beach, parts of south Seattle, the Central District, or Skyway.

“If we were to be leasing the building or the facilities, those are less funds that we could give back to our community and give back to our employees,” Lamont said. “My goal is to make sure that we own the land and that we build the facility so that all we have to do is pay our property taxes.”

When the Jerk Shack’s funds have to go toward paying rent in high-rent places, then they’re not able to provide educational or child care assistance.

“Once we own [the land and building], we have more funds to give back to child care and for educational purposes,” Lamont said. “If one of my employees wants to go to college and they’re just finishing high school, or they’ve been out of high school and they just want to better educate themselves so that they can move forward in life, then we want to be able to help with that, and that takes funding.”

Donate to Lamont’s land fund here, or reserve tickets for an upcoming Dinner Club service at the Jerk Shack here.

Listen to the Gee and Ursula Show weekday mornings from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.