Damion Lumsden wants people to have “an authentic Jamaican experience.”
Without leaving Memphis.
Lumsden, 37, wants people to say, “I’ve never been to Jamaica, but I’ve had this experience in Memphis.”
The experience is JamRack Restaurant and Bar, Lumsden’s Caribbean restaurant at 150 North Avalon Street. The restaurant is in the heart of Midtown in the group of businesses near Home Depot at Poplar Avenue and Avalon. He features “the raw authentic Jamaican experience,” including food, and on the weekends, reggae music.
On my first trip to JamRack, I tried Lumsden’s tantalizing MaMa’s Stew Chicken (also known as Brown Stewed Chicken) encircled with my side order of fried plantains (I ordered mine ripe, not green). I can’t wait to go back for more of this sweet-and-savory dish.
I also ordered the tasty jerk chicken, which is the Jamaican version of barbecue. Lumsden tells me he plans to offer jerk pork at a future date.
Lumsden’s story is fascinating.
“I’m from Portland, Jamaica,” he says. “I’m a country boy. My dad is Wayne Lumsden, a survivor of 9/11.”
His dad was an accountant in the World Trade Center in New York. “He had just turned the corner, about to enter the building, when the first explosion happened. He said he just ran as fast as he could trying to dodge the debris that was falling at the time.
“Me and my little sister wouldn’t have made it to America if he hadn’t survived.”
His dad’s business relocated its employees. He got a job as an accountant at Flextronics in Memphis.
Damion, who was 18 when he moved to Memphis with his sister Khadine, didn’t like the city at first. He spoke English, but when he tried to play basketball with the neighbor kids, he says, “They couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand them because they were speaking so fast. They were using this Memphis slang, so I wasn’t familiar with it.”
He got a job at Jabil Circuit Inc., where he “climbed the ranks” to assistant manager.
Creating Jamaican food experiences for others began when Damion helped his dad do a birthday party at their home. “We cooked and invited a bunch of people from work.”
Guests tried jerk chicken and curry goat for the first time. “They went crazy.”
People asked how they could get more of that food. “We would cook and sell food at the house. He used to deliver almost 30 to 50 plates to Jabil every week.”
One of the dishes was MaMa’s Brown Stewed Chicken. “It has a very savory and flavorful sauce. The chicken is pan-seared first, and then we add that sauce. It does have a sweet base to it. And it goes really well with rice. It’s usually a leg and a thigh cut up.”
Damion and his dad continued to throw parties at their home, where they featured Jamaican food. “We would set up a grill outside, and my dad would be on the grill.”
The parties eventually evolved into his dad’s restaurant, the old Evelyn & Olive at 630 Madison Avenue. “He didn’t open it. He bought the business in 2018.”
His dad changed up the menu “but he kept a good amount of what they already had.”
Evelyn & Olive’s cuisine was “more like Jamaican and Southern cuisine” as opposed to the raw Jamaican cuisine.
When the restaurant’s lease ran out, his dad bought the Evelyn & Olive food truck he still operates. “I got a building that same year, which is the one I’m in now, and I started to build that out.”
Damion, who held his grand opening last August, named his restaurant “JamRack” as opposed to “Jamrock,” the Jamaican spelling of the word. “I just wanted it to be unique.”
And in Jamaica they don’t pronounce it “jam-ROCK”; they say “jam-RACK.” he says.
“Jamrock” is “another way of saying ‘Jamaica’ back home.”
It was popularized in the Damian Marley song, “Welcome to Jamrock”— “Which is ‘Welcome to Jamaica.’”
Damion didn’t want a “clichéd look” of a Caribbean restaurant with the traditional Jamaican colors of red, gold, and green. Entering JamRack, which seats about 64, customers see a colorful mural depicting Jamaican “heroes” — “impactful people from our time and before our time.”
They include singer-songwriter Bob Marley, Nanny of the Maroons, Michael Manley, and Marcus Garvey.
“The look inside is very generic but has the island feel to it. The bar is made from zinc, which is what many roofs and fences are made of in Jamaica,” Damion says.
The food is made from a fusion of recipes from both his dad and his mom Lorna Brown, who still lives in Jamaica. “More raw Jamaican authentic cuisine.”
It’s all fully cooked. What makes it “raw” is the imported seasonings they use. One of these is “season to the bone,” a seasoning that is “made of a combination of a few different spices combined together to create a unique flavor.”
Damion uses the seasoning in his two most popular items, the brown stew and his red snapper.
He’s already coming up with ideas for new dishes. “One thing we’re going to do in the near future is introduce a Jamaican-style mac-and-cheese. Without going into too much detail, think of a rich, flavorful mac-and-cheese.”
The dish will have a “crispy edge on it.” And, he adds, the different spices of the Caribbean will create “different notes and flavors.”
They have a full bar, but their signature cocktails are rum based — that’s their specialty. Their favorite rum is Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum.
JamRack also features “traditional sodas from Jamaica. The most popular is Ting. It’s like a grapefruit soda. Our version of a lemonade.”
Currently, JamRack is open for lunch and dinner Wednesday through Sunday. “We almost see a new face every day,” Damion says. “A lot of people are coming in saying, ‘Hey. I heard your food was good, so I’m going to try it.’”
