Charlotte’s thriving Caribbean community is leaving its mark on the city and the islands

Johan Marte never planned on moving from his native Dominican Republic. But in 2000 while on vacation in Boston, he met a woman, fell in love and relocated to the U.S.

In 2008, he and his wife came from New York City to live in Charlotte.

Back then, Compare Food was the only supermarket where Marte could find comfort foods of home like plantains. He’d also meet up with some buddies to play dominoes at Charlotte’s only Dominican restaurant, Punta Cana on South Boulevard.

“That’s how I started meeting Dominicans and Latinos,” Marte said.

Since then, the influence of Mecklenburg County’s growing Caribbean culture has become increasingly visible through cultural celebrations and thriving new businesses thanks to people like Marte. He and his sister own Panzu Brewery in downtown Mint Hill.

In the past year, several other Caribbean-inspired businesses have popped up, including The Reggae Lounge north of uptown, Crav’n Caribbean inside west Charlotte’s The City Kitch and Caribbean Hut , with its fourth location debuting last month in Eastfield Village in Huntersville. And Afro Caribbean Soul Food is opening Aug. 18 at 2116 Charlotte Drive.

Adding to the cultural flavor are Caribbean-style dance fitness classes called SocaFit and annual celebrations, such as the Charlotte Caribbean Festiva l and a Jamaican Charlotte International Jerk Festival .

In fact, Mecklenburg County’s Caribbean population grew by more than 113% between 2010 and 2021, a Charlotte Observer analysis of the latest U.S. Census data found. The county is home to more than 70,000 people with ties to Caribbean islands or countries bordering the Caribbean Sea, a small but growing percentage of Mecklenburg’s 1.1 million people.

“The more culture you bring to any city, the more attractive” it becomes, s aid Vinroy Reid, a native of Jamaica who owns Charlotte restaurant staple Mama’s Caribbean Grill . He also spearheads the Jamaican jerk festival, which is set for its seventh annual run this September.

“Diversity is a great thing for any growing city,” Reid said.

Jamaican native Wanda Johnson, 28, moved to Charlotte last August from Tampa, Florida. She came to the U.S. for college nine years ago and stayed.

What she’s found here are places with longtime Caribbean roots, evident by businesses like the nearly 40-year-old Anntony’s Caribbean Cafe , as well as newer spots.

“It feels,” Johnson said, “like a budding Caribbean community.”

Bragging about Charlotte

Matthew Thomas, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, is another part of Charlotte’s Caribbean diaspora.

He emigrated to New York with his family when he was 7. Four years ago, he moved to Charlotte and has since connected with the Caribbean community, joining committees like the Charlotte Caribbean Carnival. “There’s a lot of buzz and a lot of people interested in the Charlotte area,” the 47-year-old said.

It was different when Reid, the restaurateur, arrived in Charlotte 30 years ago.

At age 22 and a single dad, he had moved from New York City and was working in construction helping build the Carolina Panthers stadium. There were only four Caribbean restaurants in Charlotte then, and some reggae music on Lake Norman.

“There wasn’t enough Caribbean restaurants and nightlife,” Reid said. So he decided to do something about it and opened Reid’s Caribbean Grill in 2000, which has since been renamed Mama’s Caribbean Grill.

And he used his former weekly WGIV AM radio and TV show ”The Caribbean Connection” to promote the city. “I was very braggadocios about Charlotte,” he said.

Now, there’s over 20 Caribbean-themed restaurants and businesses in the area. “I feel proud to be a part of the foundation that was built,” Reid said.

A growing Caribbean population

According to 2021 census data, the largest population of Mecklenburg County residents whose nationality is tied to countries on the Caribbean Sea (not including Mexico) is Hondurans with 20,500 people, followed by Puerto Ricans with about 11,800. This includes both natives of those lands or people with relatives who were from there.

Guatemalans had the most growth. Their population more than tripled in Mecklenburg County, from 2,000 people to 6,400 between 2010 and 2021, data show.

The census data used in the Observer’s analysis included eight countries surrounding the Caribbean Sea. Previous years data was not available for all islands, including Haiti, which had about 1,500 people in Mecklenburg County as of 2021.

“The influx is coming because what Caribbean people do is wherever they can find the food and the culture, they’re going to settle here,” Reid said.

Most of Charlotte’s Caribbean residents arrive after emigrating to cities like New York, Miami and Tampa, Florida, according to Reid and 19 other people the Observer spoke with.

It helps that Charlotte has been recognized as one of the top places to live in the U.S. for its job market, quality of life and cost of living. Charlotte Douglas International Airport also continues to add more direct flights to the Caribbean.

Celebrating carnival culture

Still, finding Charlotte’s Caribbean community can be tricky since it is spread throughout the city.

Thomas said he was looking for other Caribbeans in Charlotte when he discovered the Charlotte Caribbean Carnival while searching online for carnivals.

“I’m finding them little by little,” said Thomas, a regional sales director for a local manufacturing plant. He moved here from Miami four years ago to be near his brother.

Thomas also travels the country participating as a “masquerader” in Caribbean carnivals in cities like Miami, Atlanta and New York. “It’s a lifestyle,” he said.

Masqueraders wear costumes and dance behind a truck with DJs playing soca and calypso music. At the end, participants walk the stage and are judged for their costumes, “just like back home in Trinidad,” Thomas said.

“Carnival is just so important to most Caribbean people,” Thomas said. “All of the different islands have their own carnival.”

’Celebrate your island’

The fourth annual Charlotte Caribbean Carnival was held last month.

Thomas joined the organizing committee this year because he wanted to see it grow. The four-day celebration draws over 2,000 people, Thomas said, compared to 100,000 in Miami and over 10,000 in Atlanta .

“I want this to be one of the up-and-coming carnivals, so more people fly in from all over the world to attend,” Thomas said. There are other Caribbean carnivals in the Carolinas, too, in Raleigh , Columbia and Charleston .

Carnival casts a spotlight on the Caribbean community not just locally, but nationally. This year’s Charlotte parade on a Saturday in June drew visitors from throughout the Carolinas and Georgia, and as far away as New Jersey and New York City.

That included Ronald Pokhan. The U.S. veteran moved from Guyana to the U.S. about 45 years ago. He likes to travel to carnivals throughout the U.S. and Canada. So he made a 20-hour round-trip drive from New Jersey with a friend just to catch Charlotte’s parade for the first time.

Eve Joseph and Laura Jean, both of Atlanta, came to Charlotte as masqueraders. Both from St. Lucia, they moved to the U.S. as small children. “It’s an opportunity to celebrate our culture, celebrate your island,” said Joseph, wearing a Dingolay Mas costume bejeweled green bra and feather plumes.

For Charlotte natives like Nate Strother, the first person in his family born in the U.S., he gets to celebrate his Grenadian heritage. “I’ve been there a lot and go for the carnival, it’s part of our culture,” the 22-year-old said, donning a yellow and red jeweled headband with feathers. “The music makes me want to dance.

“It’s about making memories with friends and family.”

‘A piece of home’

For at least a decade, there was a city hot spot for Caribbean nightlight called Crystal on the Plaza in east Charlotte. But it closed during the pandemic, leaving a void in the reggae music scene that Elvado and Lytondra Laing hope to fill.

Elvado Laing is from Freeport, Bahamas. In the late 1990s, he attended the historically Black college Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh. He never felt homesick because there were over 200 students from the Caribbean, including his Bahamian roommate.

After college, he moved home. But in 2003 and 2004, several hurricanes struck “which kind of destroyed everything.” So he returned to the U.S and later met Lytondra, who’s from Sanford.

“I’ve been living here actually longer than I’ve been living in the Bahamas,” the 46-year-old Elvado said. “But I keep grounded in my roots. You never lose your accent, and I go home a lot.”

He always wanted to raise cultural awareness about his heritage. That includes his beloved reggae music.

“We’ve grown up our whole lives listening to it,” Elvado Laing said. “It’s a piece of home at all times.”

And that led the couple to open The Reggae Lounge in March north of uptown Charlotte . They’ve met a lot of folks from the Caribbean since the opening. “There are a lot of us here and we enjoy our culture, as well as we enjoy the city of Charlotte,” Elvado Laing said.

The Laings are already looking at expanding with a kitchen. It’s a success that would be harder to find in the Bahamas.

“There’s definitely more opportunity here,” Elvado Laing said. “In the islands, it’s often who you know. But here, you make it off of merit.”

Contributing to community

For many immigrants, they’ve dreamed of living in the U.S. since childhood. Mark Twain’s novels’ “Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” launched Reid’s dream that culminated in running his Caribbean grill.

In 2021, Reid was honored with the Charlotte International Cabinet International Entrepreneur Award . “That shows that all my dreams and aspirations add up to something that contributes to this community,” he said.

One area for growth is political representation, Reid said. The Democrat has run four times for Charlotte City Council but lost each time. “We need to have diversity within this city that sees all people,” Reid said.

Charlotte Symphony makes history, names a Black conductor as its new music director

Another son of the Caribbean has been hired for a high-visibility perch in the arts and culture world.

In December, Kwamé Ryan , a native of Trinidad, was named the next music director of the Charlotte Symphony. He is the first Black conductor in the orchestra’s nearly century-long history, and his tenure as maestro starts when the orchestra’s 2024-25 season begins in October.

Ties leading back to the Caribbean

Some people in Charlotte, like Lynn Phanor, see room to help their native islands.

Phanor is a first-generation American from a Haitian-Cuban family. Her mother was among hundreds of thousands of Haitians who fled to the U.S. to escape the ruthless dictator François Duvalier, known as “Papa Doc.”

“A lot of people think everybody’s migrating to the States because of income,” she said. “But it’s because of the freedoms here that we still have to protect.”

After arriving in Florida in the early 1970s, Phanor’s mom met her Cuban husband. The family eventually moved to Boston. Phanor, 43, the eldest of seven children, moved to Charlotte in 2011.

In 2017, while relaxing at home watching television, Phanor had what she called a “life-changing experience.”

She was aghast as the newscast talked about schools in Haiti being shut down for a year because of the political unrest. Haiti has few public schools, the majority are run by religious groups and private funding.

“I couldn’t see a future in Haiti without education. It opens doors that no man can close,” said Phanor, who has a master’s degree in education. “I took a stand that day that I was going to do something.”

She started traveling back and forth to Haiti, found a location for a school, put in water and electricity connections, trained educators and “even mixed cement.”

Phanor formed a nonprofit called JDV kindergarten Unenouvelleecole. With the help of her board of directors and fundraisers, as well as Phanor’s own money, she built a school. Jeune Doit Vivre Kindergarten accepted its first 20 students in 2019 with five staff members in the port city of Cap-Haitian.

Phanor also provides professional development for teachers at Université Roi Henri Christophe, and is planning an international educational camp in Labadie, Haiti.

Despite the ongoing political unrest in Haiti, Phanor remains undeterred. “There are a lot of kids that need that safe haven,” she said.

‘Proud of my heritage’

For Mint Hill’s Panzu Brewery owners Marte, 47, and sister Rosa Marte de Pacheco, 52, the business was something they wanted to do as a family.

The brewery’s menu is a fusion of Caribbean foods from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Mexico, Venezuela and Haiti. “We felt we were not fully represented in the way they should to sell to the local market,” said Marte de Pacheco, who moved with her husband and two sons to the U.S. in 2018.

Panzu Brewery added more items to the menu with authentic spicy flavors like goat empanada and yucca fries with chimichurri sauce. “We wanted to make it the real thing,” Marte de Pacheco said.

Others are also finding ways to share their culture.

Johnson has taught over 100 people dancehall , a Jamaican form of dance, since introducing it in January at XLNC Dance Studio . “That is what I want to do, wherever I go is (to) find my people and help to educate on the culture and keep spreading the love,” she said.

And as the Caribbean community continues to weave itself into the fabric of Charlotte’s tapestry, Marte said there’s much more to come.

“I’m pretty proud of my heritage.”

Observer database editor Gavin Off contributed to this report

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