Natalie Bailey opened Jamaican Taste Cuisine at 177 Church Street on May 30, at the urging of family and friends for whom she had been cooking in her Burlington home. The brightly painted counter-service restaurant offers classics from Bailey’s native Caribbean island such as jerk chicken, oxtail stew, curry goat, brown stew chicken, and beef- or chicken-filled patties. Specials might include brown stew cow feet.
The small Burlington restaurant on lower Church Street is best known as the former home of Big Daddy’s Pizza. Its most recent occupant, Nomads, opened in May 2025 with a menu of Arabic and American food and closed about eight months later.
Bailey, 33, moved in 2011 from Jamaica to Vermont, where she had family, “with the dream of creating a better life,” she said. Starting a business has been challenging, she said, but the restaurant allows her to “share my culture, my love for cooking and a piece of Jamaica with the community.”
The newly hatched restaurant owner said she liked the idea of being downtown and hoped to take advantage of foot traffic. Bailey said her mother, Dorothy Reid, and her partner, Brenton Spencer, are important helpers in the kitchen.
Jamaican Taste Cuisine is currently open Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 8 p.m.
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