Seven months ago, a full-time chef and business owner was subjected to racism when someone wrote the white marker “N” word on the front of his Caribbean restaurant in Nashua.
Chief Gerald Oriol, owner of Caribbean Breeze at 233 Main St. , has kept the incident quiet, preferring to let police investigate the April 8, 2022, incident.
But when in October, a guy smeared all his windows with a sticky substance and the police never informed him of the effects of either investigation, Oriol made it public.
He said he had no idea who wrote the slur on his window or whether he was a disgruntled visitor or a racist person. And he doesn’t know why someone would find it difficult to understand the windows of his restaurant.
But Oriol said that when he first took over the place, which once housed a well-known eating place called Norton’s Classic Cafe, he felt resentment among some customers.
“Nobody told me anything,” said Oriol, a native of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. “I don’t take it personally. “
Oriol — who was a U. S. citizen “many years ago” — dreamed of having his own restaurant, offering dishes from the Caribbean islands.
He came to the United States in his early twenties and settled in Boston, where he studied culinary arts and French cuisine at Bunker Hill Community College and earned his chef degree. He has worked at Versailles Restaurant in Lexington, Massachusetts, continental French cuisine and is qualified as a chef through the American Culinary Federation.
From that beginning, he went on to oversee regional catering operations for Sodexo, a global catering and service control company founded in France.
In 2006, he was promoted to executive chef for Sodexo’s entire East Coast. Based in North Carolina, one of its clients is the U. S. Navy. U. S.
Three years later, he transferred to Washington, D. C. , where he served as deputy director of exhibition accounts. From there, he returned to New England, assigned to Bentley University.
“Cooking is my passion”
Oriol at Bentley when COVID-19 hit. Students across the country started taking courses remotely, and suddenly there was no need for food services. With more than 30 years as executive chef, Oriol may have retired without problems.
However, his passion is cooking and his dream has been to have his own restaurant. His concept was to showcase food from five Caribbean islands: Haiti, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico, with their distinct flavors and spices, all in one restaurant.
“Cooking is my hobby and I have great respect for food, as well as the safety, quality, consistency and presentation of food,” she said. “Passion comes from my heart.
Having lived in Nashua for seven years, from 2000 to 2007, Oriol wants to return to make his dream come true.
“I left for 12 years to pursue my career in the United States,” he said. “I’m going back to this big city to open the country’s first Caribbean restaurant (with dishes from various islands) on Main Street in Nashua. “
On November 19, 2021, Oriol opened Caribbean Breeze at 233 Main St. in what had been a flagship restaurant on one of the bustling corners of downtown Nashua.
Aware that there were consumers who frequented the site for up to 4 decades (despite the place to eat changing hands several times), Oriol stuck with Norton’s breakfast and lunch menus and ’50s-themed sock stalls, with speakers, teal and pink. reminiscent of a 1950 Chevrolet Bel Air.
While Norton’s is only open for breakfast and lunch, Oriol added dinner service with a full Caribbean menu: Jamaican oxtail and Jamaican chicken; Haitian griot with escabeche (pork shoulder marinated with citrus spices, stewed and fried); Old Cuban clothes, sautéed chickpeas and shredded meat; Dominican chicharrones and cassava fritters; and, from Puerto Rico, Pernil and Sancocho, among other appetizers and tapas. The dining room is closed daily between lunches from 13:30 to 16:30.
In the back, he added a small bar so diners can simply grab a cocktail with a meal. Caribbean offerings can also be taken for lunch.
Things were going well, Oryol said, until in early April he installed a new awning with a blue background, setting sun, palm trees and the restaurant’s name “Caribbean Breeze” in white letters. The canopy featured the five flags of the islands.
A few days later, on April 8, 2022, around 8:30 p. m. While cleaning, he looked out the front window and saw that there was nothing written on it. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that someone had used a white marker to write the word “N. “He called the police.
“Overwhelming for all of us”
Granite State News Collaborative received a copy of the police report. Before receiving him in mid-November, police asked the officer who took the report, Senior Patrolman Cameron Douglas, to touch Oriol. Oriol said Douglas told him they closed the case because he couldn’t locate any video of the incident. The officer told him he was sorry Oriol had to go through what he did.
In the police report, Douglas said he observed the racist slur written outside the window in “small print, but he was able to rub the writing with a rag and noticed the letters begin to fade. “
Oriol said he would describe the footprint as small.
Oriol told the officer that the insult was not in the window when he opened the dining room that morning and only saw it that night while cleaning. He told Douglas he had a security camera that probably overlooked the window, but he didn’t know how to do it. access it. Douglas said he would stick to it to check the prestige of the images.
Five days later, on April 13, 2022, Douglas again verified with Oriol the security camera footage. Douglas tested the camera angles of the place to eat, but you might find a camera that captured the symbol of the user who wrote the insult.
That the scope of the investigation into the incident, according to Douglas’ report, and called for the case to be dropped until any additional information is discovered. The report does not say he contacted any of the surrounding businesses to see if any of their security cameras recorded the culprit.
The incident was classified as a prank by thieves and was not designated as a hate crime.
When Douglas stopped by for lunch in mid-November, Oriol asked him why he hadn’t consulted with the nearby CVS, and Douglas told him the pharmacy’s cameras were tracking his parking lot.
Oriol said one of his consumers told him that Five Star Pizza, just across the street from Caribbean Breeze, had a camera pointed at Main Street that recorded activity outside the doors of his restaurant. If police had looked at the security footage, Oriol said the culprit may only have been identified.
The October incident, according to police, involved a young man with intellectual fitness problems. Two other corporations, PRG Rugs and Citizens Bank, also had their windows darkened at the same time.
Sy Mahfuz is a daily customer. He recently sold his business, PRG carpets, to his son, making him the fourth generation to own the Main Street business next to City Hall and near Caribbean Breeze. For four decades, he and a few friends met every morning for coffee. and breakfast at 233 Main St. below its other properties.
Most of the time, he says, he and his two friends are in the dining room before Oriol arrives.
Mahfouz remembers seeing the “N” word in the window and reported it to Oryol the morning after the police called.
It was offensive and shocking in the sense that, at the time, in our small town of Nashua, I thought, “How can this be?”I was surprised.
Mahfuz said he saw Oryol throw him out of the window. “We all think it’s some kind of wax,” he said. It’s hard to get out of it. This is not easy. “
Mahfouz said the incident disappointed them all. ” It’s a provocation to all of us because he’s a glorious guy,” he said. “He came to Nashua with all the most productive intentions and dreams, like all of us, that we can succeed on our own. He is an exceptional guy with a large circle of relatives and we are all disappointed that this has happened and his business is reeling and none of us can perceive why because it is the same place, with the same breakfast and lunch. menu.
Oriol is the black owner of a business on Main Street.
And while Mahfouz is an adventurous dinner and hasn’t tried Caribbean cuisine, she said her son did.
“He says Oryol’s food is phenomenal,” he said. It gets the best grades out of it. “
Mahfouz is saddened and disappointed by the incident.
“I think nowadays, I read an incident like this, no matter what city it is in, I think, ‘You’re laughing at me those days. Seriously? I’m amazed, that’s all we’re talking about. envelope.
This article is shared through Granite State News Collaborative spouses. It was published through Manchester Ink Link, a partner in the collaboration. For more information, visit collaboratifnh. org.