{"id":15222,"date":"2024-08-07T08:14:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T12:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=15222"},"modified":"2024-08-05T11:23:18","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T15:23:18","slug":"bringing-the-taste-of-jamaica-to-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2024\/08\/07\/bringing-the-taste-of-jamaica-to-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing the Taste of Jamaica to Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hakim Lee \u201907 and his brother run Doctor Bird’s Jamaican Patty Shack, an homage to their heritage. <\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Hakim<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

When Hakim Lee \u201907 moved to Chicago for a job in finance, he was stunned to discover that he could not find a restaurant with Jamaican patties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told my brother, who was in New York, and he didn\u2019t believe me,\u201d says Lee. \u201cHow could such a large city not sell Jamaican patties?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee\u2019s quest for the popular West Indian meat-filled pastry makes a lot more sense with some insight into his upbringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI grew up in the kitchen at my dad\u2019s Jamaican restaurant,\u201d Lee says of Doctor Bird\u2019s in Buffalo, N.Y., now in its 43rd year of business. His parents opened the popular spot in 1981 \u2014 four years before Lee was born. \u201cI\u2019ve been around food my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee\u2019s parents are Jamaican immigrants, and to gain traction in Buffalo \u2014 which, like Chicago, doesn\u2019t have a prominent Jamaican population \u2014 Lee\u2019s father turned his one- time Caribbean grocery into the go-to for patties, sealing its success. Upon realizing the gap in Chicago\u2019s otherwise celebrated and diverse food scene, Lee and his brother, Changa, decided to give the Jamaican patty a new home. \u201cNo risk, no fun,\u201d says Lee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctor Bird\u2019s Jamaican Patty Shack \u2014 an homage to their father\u2019s establishment \u2014 welcomed its first customers in fall 2021, setting up shop in the popular Wicker Park neighborhood on North Milwaukee Avenue. The eatery has since won praise as the No. 3 best restaurant by The Infatuation online dining guide; as a hottest new restaurant by Chicago Magazine<\/em>; and Eater.com ranked it No. 7 among the best in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to create a place that was reminiscent of the business we grew up in. So I put together a plan, and we opened it,\u201d says Lee. His brother runs the operation full time, and Lee is, by day, a director of commercial finance with Compass Group, a global food-service company. He earned a bachelor\u2019s in sociology and anthropology in 2007 at Colgate (where he cooked in his apartment for his Jamaican friends) and an MBA at the University of Rochester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the front doors of Doctor Bird\u2019s (the name of a Jamaican hummingbird), there\u2019s a cool blast of reggae and a Jamaican- style, laid-back ambiance with a decidedly hip twist in both feeling and food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a chill, rustic place,\u201d says Lee, who creates the recipes himself, drawing on both tradition and his own ideas. \u201cJamaican food is an amalgamation from across the world. Patties are originally British, roti and curry come from India, rice and peas are from Spain, and Rasta Pasta is from New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee tweaks his dishes both for diners \u2014 \u201cWe have a really diverse customer base\u201d \u2014 and to introduce a new \u201cspin,\u201d as he calls it. Doctor Bird\u2019s serves Coco Rice ( jasmine rice, coconut cream, and chicken stock) instead of the well-known island staple rice and peas, and the nontraditional bao and tacos alongside the old-school roti (flatbread) are stuffed with a variety of jerk proteins from steak and shrimp to jackfruit and salmon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The menu is packed with entrees infused with the time-honored jerk spices: wood-smoked jerk Cornish hen, jerk skirt steak, jerk fried chicken and waffles \u2014 and the most-requested dish: jerk wings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s to the point now that if I\u2019m walking on the street, people say, \u2018Oh, I like your spot,\u2019\u201d says Lee. He\u2019s not shy about admitting the long hours and challenges involved in running a busy restaurant, but he loves the \u201cpeople component.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe meet a lot of people in the community whom we would not have otherwise, and we\u2019re supporting employees,\u201d he adds. \u201cWith people coming together and working together, good things can be created.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his application essay for Colgate, Lee wrote about his dad going to work every day at the family\u2019s Buffalo restaurant. His dad keeps that essay in his dresser drawer.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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