More than two decades after Elom Essiba arrived in Vermont from her native Togo, she will soon fulfill her dream of regularly sharing African food from her catering business, Le Bon GoûT, in the concessions stand at Myers Memorial Pool in Winooski’s Landry Park.
The year-round takeout restaurant uses a capital T for its final letter in order to stand out, Essiba said. It will be open daily and offer many African staple dishes, a few American snack bar faves, grilled panini sandwiches and ice cream.
The menu will include doughnuts called puff puff, made with banana or drizzled with chocolate; samosas filled with beef, chicken or vegetables; jollof rice cooked with tomatoes and spices and topped with chicken, fish or goat; and fufu of mashed yam and plantains, topped with egusi soup made with greens. Essiba will also offer cold drinks, such as ginger-pineapple juice and hibiscus tea.
Customers can place orders at the counter or on Le Bon GoûT’s website. Poolside delivery will be available, and Essiba said she hopes to rent the community room to offer some on-site dining.
When Essiba heard that Offbeat Creemee was leaving the pool concession space after four seasons, she applied with the help of Winooski real estate agent Brian Steinmetz. “It’s small and the perfect size to get Le Bon GoûT out there,” she said.
Offbeat Creemee owner Aisha Bassett recently announced that she will open a plant-based ice cream counter at Uncommon Coffee in Essex in late June.
Essiba said she started her catering and pop-up business in 2019 “as a side hustle” to her work as a high school paraeducator. The Winooski resident, who has two high school-age children, also serves on her town’s school board.
“Since moving to Vermont, I have been looking for an African restaurant, but there’s never one,” Essiba said.
Last summer, she received valuable help from a pilot program that gave emerging food vendors access to the Micro Mobile Kitchen electric cart on Church Street at no cost, she said. She began vending at the Winooski Farmers Market this winter and continues at that summer market and both locations of the Champlain Islands Farmers Market, as well as being a rotating vendor at the Burlington Farmers Market and South End Get Down.
Le Bon GoûT will celebrate a grand opening on June 15 at 3 p.m.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2025.
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