Frantz Felix has been cooking since he was 7-years-old in Haiti. When he came to California, he was surprised to see there weren’t any Haitian restaurants. He decided to remedy that by taking matters into his own hands. “In 2013, I got a food truck and started working with Off the Grid,” says Frantz. His food truck menu offers popular Haitian bites like oxtail, fried goat, snapper, and griot — a citrus-marinated pork dish with crispy edges.
Eight years after opening his food truck, he opened up his first restaurant. Frantz explains that restaurants and food trucks have their pros and cons. Even after opening a restaurant he kept his food truck because he enjoys running both. He says that a food truck is fast paced, unlike a restaurant where customers come in to sit down, chat, and take their time enjoying the food. A food truck also has less overhead costs like rent, electricity, and more employees. The biggest advantage is that it’s easy to attract new customers since they can move around. “When I started my food truck,” says Frantz, “Nobody knew about my food.” He says that Off the Grid provided exposure and allowed more people to learn about Haitian cuisine. Those people encouraged him to open a restaurant. During his first couple of months in business, his customers were his regulars from his food truck.
Frantz has this advice to offer upcoming restaurateurs: “They have to make sure they know what they want and what they’re getting into,” says Frantz. He explains that a deep love and passion for cooking are a requirement because of the deep level of commitment required in the field. “I used to head out of my house at seven in the morning and wouldn’t finish dinner until 10 at night,” says Frantz. He also advises to be patient and not expect to be famous in 6 months or a year — it takes consistency to see success.
Frantz is hoping to introduce Haitian cuisine to even more people across California. He notes that places like New York and Florida have plenty of Haitian restaurants, but he was the first in the entire Bay Area. Specifically, he plans to expand to Sacramento since it’s an area where many of his customers come from. He might be spearheading the Haitian food movement in California, but hopefully he inspires others to open Haitian restaurants as well.
