After seeing the success of his friend’s Caribbean restaurant in Sudbury, Dwane Campbell decided to take a chance and open his own in North Bay.
“I used to give him my help and there’s people from [North Bay] who used to drive all the way over. It brought to my attention that they wanted the food,” Campbell said.
The Caribbean Jerk Kitchen and Grill on Algonquin Avenue specializes in traditional Caribbean cuisine and jerk cooking.
It has space for about 30 people and recently added a bar licence, though Campbell said most customers order takeout.
He opened in August 2024 and said the Afro-Heritage Association of Sudbury’s Northern Ontario Black Economic Empowerment Program (NOBEEP) helped him put together a business plan and get started.
Now the organization is expanding its support with a new settlement program launching in September.
Filling in service gaps
“The business settlement service is a program that we are launching to create a soft landing pad for Afro businesses coming from Black nations, Black people in particular, who are looking to come to northern Ontario to bring their services and to bring their investments in order to bolster the economy of northern Ontario,” said Charles Chamirai Nyabeze, CEO of NOBEEP.
Nyabeze said the goal is to attract businesses that fill existing service gaps, not create competition.
“We want to attract businesses like auto repair, landscaping, cleaning services, food services, transportation and self-care businesses like hairdressers. These are businesses that are not really here to cater for this growing Black population in northern Ontario. There’s a big void.” He said.
Someone trying to fill that void is Bukola Opara, who opened her boutique Buchi Hafikana in the downtown Sudbury mall earlier this month.
Alongside her two daughters, Opara runs the clothing store that sells ready-to-wear and customized African attire.
In the early 2000s, she launched her business in Lagos, Nigeria and later moved to Canada in 2018.
Opara and her family first moved to Montreal then Toronto before settling in Sudbury.
“When we first got to Sudbury, we noticed the need for African attire around here. People were finding it difficult to get our stuff and getting it from Africa is so expensive,” Opara said.
“Since it’s what I do back home, this was easy for me to navigate.”
She’s now hoping her store helps meet the needs of the Black community in Sudbury.
“My community is defined by what we eat and what we wear. We always go with our culture anywhere we want to be represented,” Opara said.
“It’s an African custom, you always wear colours. That’s something that brings smiles to us. So we always like to wear our costume even though we still wear the western clothes.”
Opara said NOBEEP helped her create a business plan and thinks the settlement program will help attract entrepreneurs outside of Canada who are ready to invest in a business in the north.
Addressing systemic barriers
Nyabeze said the service will work on a fee-for-service model, with costs depending on the size of the investment.
Entry-level businesses will pay about $2,500, medium-scale ventures around $5,000, and larger opportunities up to $10,000.
He said each entrepreneur will go through an intake process, with NOBEEP tailoring the support to their needs rather than offering a “cookie-cutter” program. A first public webinar is scheduled for Sept. 9.
Nyabeze added the initiative is about more than just individual businesses, it’s about building long-term wealth and addressing systemic barriers.
“Many Black people in this community in northern Ontario are doing what we call the entry-level jobs,” he said. “We feel that this approach doesn’t create a wealth base in the Black community, and by not creating a wealth base, we’re going to create societal problems… This is one of our approaches to build that up.”
Campbell said programs like this are essential for enoucraging newcomers and aspiring entrepreneurs to take the leap.
“I would say go for it with the help of NOBEEP. You have to be patient and put all your effort into it.”
