Caribbean couple opens Jamaican restaurant to share flavorful food from islands
A Caribbean couple wanted to bring a taste of their islands to the Treasure Coast.
Clayton Brissett and wife Janelle opened Big Boyz Jamaican Restaurant in the South Vero Square plaza on U.S. 1 at Oslo Road in Vero Beach.
He’s from St. Thomas, Jamaica; she’s from the Bahamas. They hired two Jamaican chefs: Rohan Smith of St. Elizabeth and Maxwell Baker of Kingston.
The menu is full of traditional dishes and authentic flavors, but they also put their own twist on the food.
“The Bahamian mac and cheese is a little different than the American,” Brissett said. “This one is baked.”
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That’s been the most popular menu item so far, as well as the jerk chicken, oxtail, jerk pork and steamed vegetables.
“If you look at the reviews,” Brissett said, “everybody loves the jerk chicken.”
He said people typically think real Jamaican food, especially jerk chicken, is spicy.
“You make it what it is,” Brissett said. “We can do spicy or we can do mild.”
He gets the pork from Guy’s Meats and the oxtail and chicken from the House of Meats, both in Fort Pierce, because he found Vero Beach doesn’t have a good meat shop. He wants to keep his business on the Treasure Coast instead of patronizing shops in West Palm Beach.
“I try to keep everything at the local level,” Brissett said. “Whatever I can do, I try to support everybody in the community.”
The couple moved from Pembroke Pines to Lakewood Park in June 2019 and started a food truck in August 2020.
She was working at Lakewood Park Elementary, and he was cooking and working in the auto industry.
“I decided to take on the cooking full-time, so I started the food truck just to build my brand,” Brissett said. “I realized there was nothing in Vero Beach for a Jamaican restaurant, and the competition was not there.”
That’s when he decided to open a permanent location. He kept the food truck for catering events and opened the restaurant Feb. 10.
“I saw it was needed — a real good Caribbean-Jamaican restaurant,” Brissett said.
The breakfast menu includes liver ($13.99), calaloo ($12.99), ackee and saltfish ($16.49), corned beef and cabbage ($12.99), butterbeans and saltfish ($13.99), porridges ($7.99-$10.99) and a variety of sides, such as plantains, dumplings, yams, bananas and yuca ($1).
The lunch menu features jerk chicken ($13.49), jerk pork ($13.49), oxtail ($20.99), curry chicken ($13.49), brownstew chicken ($13.49), fried chicken ($13.49), barbecue chicken ($13.49), curry goat ($15.49), wings and fries ($13.49), chicken and waffles ($13.49), and sweet and sour chicken ($13.49). Everything is served with rice, peas and white rice, as well as salad or steamed vegetables.
All meals are served with two sides, a choice of rice, steamed vegetables or baked beans.
Sides ($5) include rice, peas, gungo (pigeon peas) and white rice; steamed cabbage, corn and carrots; baked beans, macaroni and plantains. Soups ($7.99-$10.99) change daily:
Monday: Chicken soup
Tuesday: Cowfoot soup
Wednesday: Fish soup
Thursday: Beef soup
Friday: Goat soup
Saturday: Red peas soup
Seafood options ($20.99) are cooked to order and include curry shrimp, sweet and sour shrimp, spicy shrimp, shrimp and broccoli, escovitch fish and brownstew fish. Big Boyz steam fish ($25.99) includes pumpkin, carrots, broccoli, okra, onions and bell peppers and is served with crackers and bammy (cassava flatbread).
Big Boyz Jamaican Restaurant
Address: 774 S. U.S. 1, Vero Beach
Hours: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Saturday
Phone: 772-584-3219
Laurie K. Blandford is TCPalm's entertainment reporter and columnist dedicated to finding the best things to do on the Treasure Coast. Follow her on Twitter @TCPalmLaurie and Facebook @TCPalmLaurie. Email her at laurie.blandford@tcpalm.com. Sign up for her What To Do in 772 weekly newsletter at profile.tcpalm.com/newsletters/manage.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: New restaurant: Big Boyz Jamaican Restaurant opens in Vero Beach
