Jerk on the button – Winnipeg Free Press

WESTERN STREET. PAUL — This month marks a full decade since Vincent Dennis opened a Caribbean restaurant at the West St. Paul Curling Club.

And while one might assume that someone who has spent so much time around the stones and hoops would already know a thing or two about the roaring game, that's not the case with the Jamaican-born owner of Tropical Thunder.

Not even close.

“I've been here since 2015 and I still have no idea what I'm looking at,” says Dennis, 52, with a grin, sitting at a table with a clear view of the 62-year-old club's four curling fields.

“Honestly, it would be a lot easier if I could calculate the damn score so I knew when the games were coming to an end and started preparing, but seriously, who the hell even knows about that?”

Dennis and his mother, a single parent, immigrated to Winnipeg from Clarendon, Jamaica when he was seven years old, arriving here in mid-December. (On the day of our visit, the married father of five was wearing a dark jacket emblazoned with the Jamaican flag in support of those affected by Hurricane Melissa.)

Then, after getting off the plane, you had to walk along the runway. He remembers the temperature was “something crazy, like minus 40.”

“I’d never seen snow before—it was a complete culture shock—and I swear I got frostbite every other day that winter,” he says, speaking loud enough to be heard over the soundtrack of reggae music playing on a pair of wall speakers.

Being a hardworking person, by the age of 10 Dennis had already worked three part-time jobs. Winnipeg Free Press And Winnipeg SunHe also washed dishes at the closed Sorrento store on Henderson Highway, not far from where he and his mother lived in North Kildonan.

He quickly fell in love with the hustle and bustle of working in the kitchen. So much so that, as a 5th grade student at Princess Margaret School, he kept a notebook detailing the type of restaurant he planned to one day own, down to how much he intended to pay his imaginary employees.

“I've always loved cooking,” he says, noting that he couldn't change a tire on his truck if his life depended on it, but he can cook almost any dish from scratch without resorting to a recipe.

“As a kid, I would try to have dinner ready by the time my mom got home from work, usually Jamaican favorites like cabbage and corned beef or ackee and saltfish.”

Dennis was one of the first people hired as a chef when Olive Garden opened a restaurant on Rinders Drive in the mid-1980s. At 17, the company transferred him to Toronto to work at a new franchise on Front Street.

He eventually left Olive Garden for East Side Mario's, then Kelsey's Original Roadhouse, where he added bartending to his resume. (Unlike cooking, he turned out to be a “terrible” bartender. It never mattered how many times a customer ordered a Long Island Iced Tea or a Mai Tai during the evening. He had to read his bar guide every time to mix them correctly.)

Married at 27, with two children and a third on the way, he and his wife decided to return to Winnipeg. Yes, he wanted to be closer to his mother, but they both also wanted to buy a home for their growing family, a goal he said was nearly impossible in Toronto unless he worked “seven days a week with five other part-time jobs” to make ends meet.

Over the next 15 years, he juggled running a Jamaican-style food truck, also called Tropical Thunder, and a landscaping and property maintenance company he founded after realizing he was talented at it too. He enjoyed being outside from May to September, but was afraid of clearing snow in the winter, one of the services he provided.

Ten years ago, the landscaping business became so successful that he no longer needed to operate year-round. There was one problem: Although he and his wife adore each other, he wasn't entirely sure she liked the idea of ​​him staying home 24/7, he says with a wink.

In early fall, his thoughts returned to the imaginary restaurant he had dreamed of when he was in elementary school. He did a few auditions and discovered that the West St. Paul Curling Club was looking for someone to take over the then run-of-the-mill cafeteria, which served club members soft drinks, potato chips and hot dogs.

Okay, maybe he didn't want to reproduce the menu at all. On the other hand, the stated schedule – from mid-October to early April – perfectly corresponded to his main activity.

He started with hamburgers and fries but settled on hot dogs, telling himself his skills went far beyond that, he says. At one point in his second season, he told management that he wanted to introduce Jamaican cuisine as well. They said he could try it, but they doubted it would stick.

Let's see, he shot back.

Ten years later, 50 percent of those who come here for jerk chicken, island shrimp and oxtail have nothing to do with the curling club. Dennis regularly receives clients from as far away as Steinbach and Dominion City, people who learn of his rates primarily through word of mouth. He adds that it's not uncommon for food delivery drivers to look inside, wondering if they have the correct address, unaware that they're picking up their order at a curling club and not an individual restaurant.

This curling season, Tropical Thunder even helped increase participation at the rink, located just off Main Street at 431 Grassmere Rd.

“There was a couple here recently who said they had been curling at another club in town for many years, but after dining here during the bonspiel last February they decided to join West St instead. Paul,” he boasts, mentioning that there is about 140 seating between the two levels—the main floor and the licensed space on the second floor.

In addition to traditional Jamaican dishes, Dennis also offers fusion dishes such as jerk chicken poutine, jerk chicken Alfredo and jerk chicken quesadillas. Additionally, his Rockabessa Burger with multiple patties and all the trimmings, named after his eldest daughter Essence, whom he names Rockabessa after Orcabessa, a Jamaican community near Ocho Rios, was a huge hit during Burger Week this year when he took part in the annual food festival for the first time.

Back to curling, when it comes to trying out the sport, Dennis is grinning from ear to ear, insisting that no one will be rushing to see it anytime soon.

“I watch some guys release a rock and they look damn sexy with their perfect shape and their hair blowing in the wind. Whenever I do that, I slide all over the place. I'm much better off parking in front of the stove where I at least know what I'm doing.”

Tropical Thunder is open from 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and from noon to 9:00 pm on Fridays. It is also open for breakfast on Saturday mornings.

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