A Caribbean restaurant run by a mother and daughter has taken up residence at 357 Edgewood Ave SE, putting the cooking of Trinidad and Jamaica on Edgewood Avenue in Sweet Auburn, just east of downtown. Miss Conduck is co-owned by Chef Emily James and her daughter, LaToya Franklyn, and it is open now for dine-in, takeout, catering and private events.
The kitchen leans on the dishes that anchor island home cooking. Oxtail, jerk chicken and curry chicken share the menu with roti and plantains, and the restaurant makes its own sauces in house. Beyond regular service, the room doubles as an event space, hosting brunches, private celebrations and other gatherings built around the food and culture of the islands.
James did not come to the restaurant business by the usual route. Over several decades she ran salons and managed real estate offices, and she traces her drive to build her own businesses back to her childhood in Trinidad. In her telling, the restaurant grew out of years of family gatherings and parties where guests kept coming back for more of her cooking and asking to take plates home. After hearing that for long enough, she decided to see whether the praise would hold up with paying customers.
The choice of Edgewood Avenue was deliberate. James has said the neighborhood's mix of music, culture and community reminded her of the Caribbean, and that the area also brought to mind the family's old neighborhood in Brooklyn. The result, as she describes it, is a location that feels like home to the people running it.
Early returns have been encouraging, according to James. She says the dining room draws people with roots in the islands, Southerners and workers from corporate offices, and that many tell her the restaurant fills a gap in the city's dining options. Some of the most meaningful feedback, she says, comes from guests who say a dish reminds them of a grandmother's cooking or that they had not eaten roti like hers in years. In her words, "Feeding people is my love language."
Running a restaurant in an older building comes with its own pressures. James has pointed to staffing, keeping the food consistent from day to day, and the expense of operating in a historic structure as the ongoing challenges. She has kept her focus on the guests and the reaction to the food rather than on those hurdles.
The owners are already thinking past the first location. Plans call for growing the catering side of the business and bringing Miss Conduck to additional locations, with an airport outpost among the possibilities under consideration. James has also talked about turning the business into a way to mentor younger people interested in hospitality and running their own companies.
For Sweet Auburn, the opening adds an independent, family-owned restaurant to Edgewood Avenue, and a place where a home cook's recipes have made the jump to a dining room open to the public.
Original reporting by Joey Reams for What Now Atlanta.