New York Restaurant Irie Jerk Gets Support from TikTok Star

Niki Gordon runs Irie Jerk, a small hole-in-the-wall Jamaican restaurant in Brooklyn, New York, that sells a mean of 400 kilos of jerk chicken a day. Gordon’s restaurant wasn’t all the time as bustling because it is now, before TikTok star helped her restaurant get off the bottom to its popularity.

According to Nicolas Nuvan and his videographer, Jaime, Gordon’s venue caught their attention within the context of Nuvan’s work in New York City neighborhoods, which he said often come about completely spontaneously.

“It’s just me and my filmmaker Jaime, and we almost never have a plan,” Nuvan said. “Sometimes we’ll walk 30 blocks and nothing will happen. And sometimes we’ll go out and walk around and something will happen. I’m just someone who’s interested in cultures and communities and sharing with people.”

Gordon and her company have felt the results of Nuvan’s concentrate on Caribbean communities in New York City on his 2.3 million TikTok followers, she shared . Gordon also discussed the influence her family has on her and her work ethic.

“I think of my grandmother, born in 1915,” Gordon said. “I have two nieces who graduated from Howard University. The younger one is magna cum laude, just got a degree in nanotechnology from Johns Hopkins. They are descendants of a woman who used to sign her name with a red X because she couldn’t read.”

Gordon continued, “Giving up is not an option. If she had given up, I wouldn’t be here to tell you her story about how much sugar cane she cut. So they have to persevere. She cut the sugar cane so I wouldn’t have to.”

Meanwhile, Nuvan said that as an alternative of glorifying famous people, more people should look to social institutions like Gordon and her restaurant for inspiration.

“Growing up, we idolize famous people,” Nuvan said, adding that he believes Gordon and others locally are doing extraordinary things and “they are people we should learn from.”

Gordon, then again, sees the community, especially the Caribbean community in New York, as one family that all the time comes together when faced with challenges.

“We have every nation you can imagine — every single one,” Gordon said. “And the good thing is we’re all coming together. One thing is Jamaicans. One thing is Guyanese. One thing is Bajans. One thing is Trinidadians. We’re all coming together. You know what I mean? Because it’s one Caribbean, and that’s what we have here in Brooklyn.”

Gordon also marveled on the undeniable fact that she has customers from all around the world who come to her shop to eat her chicken, saying, “I have customers from Singapore, California, London,” Gordon said. “I mean, these people have flown here just to get my chicken. Miracles happen every day. And they do exist.”