First black-owned restaurant on City
Island brings seafood and soul food
BY SARAH BELLE LIN
City Island is a corner of the Bronx
where scenes can remain unchanged for
days — anchored boats lazily bob in its
marinas, cars are dropped off for hours
at the island’s restaurant lots. Save for
the island’s only bus line, the Bx29 and
overhead planes fl ying towards LaGuardia
Airport, time seems to stop.
But where else could you fi nd eateries
named Man Overboard Bar, Original
Crab Shanty or The Black Whale?
And now, Black history is being
made. A new seafood joint, Seafood
Kingz 2, held its grand opening on Feb.
26. It’s the fi rst Black-owned seafood restaurant
in City Island.
Bronx Borough President Vanessa
Gibson attended the ribbon cutting
ceremony, along with Deputy Borough
President Janet Peguero, founder and
owner Darryl Lelie, his son and general
manager Derell Lelie, his wife Catrina
Lelie and the restaurant’s other general
managers Thomas Booker and Charles
Dewindt.
“This is what Black excellence is all
about,” Gibson said. “It’s very signifi -
cant that we’re doing this during the
celebration of Black History Month because
so many Black Americans have
paved the way for all of us to be here.
“There’ll be some hard things happening
along the way, being a small
business owner and working with multiple
city agencies. But I want you to
remember this day. I want you to remember
this opening. I want you to remember
the vision that you created.
Don’t let anyone take that from you.”
The fi rst Seafood Kingz restaurant
opened in September 2019 on Linden
Boulevard in St. Albans, Queens, a business
which held steady at the onset of the
pandemic, even as businesses around
them shuttered and New York City became
the nation’s pandemic hotspot.
“My neighborhood looked like a
ghost town,” Darryl said. “The only people
open was us, KFC and White Castle.”
The Lelies had a Seafood Kingz also
open in the South Bronx, but ran into
complications while expanding its business,
and closed shop. Darryl had come
so close to opening another Seafood
Kingz location on City Island previously
hat he wasn’t going to let the opportunity
pass.
“The funny thing is, we came driving
up here,” Darryl said. “Me, my wife
and my son. We seen the ‘For rental’ and
we was like, ‘Man, that’s that’s the spot
we tried to get fi ve years ago!’”
Darryl has racked up over a couple
decades as a restaurateur. His other son,
Dalvin, is bringing a couple decades of
culinary experience as the restaurant’s
head chef. He built the new restaurant’s
menu in just three hours.
“I’ve been in the kitchen since I was
5,” said Dalvin, 21. “My father set the
blueprint for us.”
Darryl said Dalvin began making a
name for himself in the family’s business
when he turned 13, “whether it
be cutting shrimp, or prepping fi sh or
BRONX TIMES R 4 REPORTER, MAR. 4-10, 2022 BTR
cutting chicken, you know, he was in
there.”
Derell, a Soundview native, remembers
ordering virgin piña coladas on
City Island when he was eight. He’s impartial
to his mother Catrina’s “famous
banana pudding” that the restaurant is
offering in its dessert menu (along with
carrot cake and red velvet cake), but for
starters?
“I’ve always encouraged people who
haven’t tried our restaurants to always
get the triple threat,” said Derell, 33. “It’s
fried fi sh, shrimp and chicken.”
Seafood Kingz 2 is the fi rst restaurant
visitors will see on their left when
arriving on the 1.5-mile long corner of
the Bronx. The restaurant held its grand
opening for close friends and family on
a brisk Saturday afternoon when many
businesses were closed.
Dr. Edward H. Lowe, a longtime City
Island resident, recalled the days when
City Island was “an enclave of conservatism,
but the complexion of the island
has changed.”He remembers when his
sister was the only child of color on the
island or when a Black family’s house
was burnt to the ground in the late
1960s.
Lowe is the son of federal judge Mary
Johnson Lowe, who along with her husband,
were the fi rst Black people to purchase
property on City Island, reported
The New York Times in 1982. Lowe still
lives on City Island practicing medicine
out of his home.
His advice to the Seafood Kingz family?
“Just be yourself. Your best advertisement
is word of mouth.”
Shariea “MC Heavyn” Perry, who
has lived on City Island for the past 12
years as one of the very few Black families,
stopped by on the grand opening
day to pass on her blessings.
“Six years ago, there were not a lot of
African Americans there,” Perry said.
“But through the years, it’s been more
welcoming and more accepting to us.”
Fran Browning, who has lived on
City Island for 22 years and whose husband
grew up on the island (known as a
“mussel sucker”) hasn’t been able to eat
out in City Island because she and her
daughter are unvaccinated, for medical
reasons. She’s looking toward the end of
vaccine mandates so she can revisit her
favorite City Island haunts and drop by
the newest restaurant.
“In the summer, all I really crave is
seafood,” Browning said. “If they’re offering
food with a southern twist, that’s
really cool.”
The menu offers a wide breadth of
seafood entree and combo options like
Cajun fried tenders, king crab legs, red
snapper, fried lobster tails, mac and
cheese, coconut butterfl y shrimp and
candy yams.
“We give them an avenue to have
some of their own food, with the things
that they love,” Darryl said. “So you get
your seafood with the soul food trimmings.
You can’t copy it up here, you
know, you can’t imitate it. This is the
real soulful stuff.”
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and Deputy Borough President Janet Peguero
were on hand to celebrate the opening of the fi rst Black-owned restaurant in City Island.
Photo | Adrian Childress
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