BRONX TIMES REPORTER, S BTR EPTEMBER 6-12, 2019 19
Ralph Rolle (left c) along with supporters during Soul Snacks Cafe’s grand opening.
Fernando Justiniano
Soul Snacks Cafe marches
to the beat of a new drum
BY ALEX MITCHELL
A corner in Westchester Square
is getting sweeter and sweeter by the
minute.
Soul Snacks Café at 2707 E. Tremont
Avenue is serving up some of the borough’s
best baked goods with plenty
of other appetizing entrées since its
grand opening on Saturday, August
17.
Besides some of the sweetest chocolate
chip cookies you ever tasted,
there’s buffalo chicken sliders and
plenty of additional mouth watering
delights. Soul Snacks brings a beat
that others just simply cannot.
It’s owned by renowned Bronx entrepeneur
and drummer Ralph Rolle,
best known for his work with the funkera
band Chic, along with many other
notable funk acts.
Rolle’s musical history and current
endeavors are displayed throughout
the café, including photos ensconced
with celebrities like Nile Rodgers to
credentials from festivals, especially
Glastonbury in 2017, while other momentos
capture the wide breathe of his
musical career.
Rodgers, a great friend of Rolle’s,
hasn’t made his way into Soul Snacks
just yet due to some recording sessions
in London, England, but he plans to
shortly.
Rolle says that putting on a musical
show and serving food, particularly
his new, delectable sweet potato cookies,
are essentially the same thing.
“Either way you’re putting on a
performance,” Rolle explained, mentioning
that his love for cooking came
from his mother Rose Rolle while they
were living in Bronx River Houses
during his adolescence.
As a matter of fact, there’s no chili
that compares to his mom’s, according
to the celebrity drummer. Hence why
Rolle won’t include chili on his Soul
Snacks Café menu.
Though, that menu is fi lled with
plenty of other unique options that few
others offer, such as oxtail.
“Have you ever even had oxtail?”
Rolle rhetorically asked. For those
readers that haven’t had the privilege
of tasting oxtail at Soul Snacks, its
taste is best described as a beef, pork
and chicken hybrid that slides off the
bone when cooked and is best served
with white rice and cabbage.
On the culinary side of things, Rolle
is best known for his cookie brand,
Soul Snacks Cookie Company, which
he created at the Bronx River Houses
in 1996 and has been operating out of
Hunts Point since.
The café serves as an opportunity
for Rolle to expand beyond dessert
while also keeping it as a staple of his
menu, the drummer explained.
His next plan is to install an ice
cream bar where guests can select two
different fl avors of cookies to make ice
cream sandwiches, which needless to
say will become a cold, hot commodity
of the east Bronx.
While handling the opening of new
café, Rolle remains active in his music
career as well.
Currently, he’s pursuing the ambition
of bringing a drum corps back
to the Bronx, like the one that Rolle
played in while growing up in addition
to working on some rhythmically electric
dance tracks.
“That’s next on my list,” Rolle said,
mentioning that after the hopeful success
of Soul Snacks Café, he envisions
sitting alongside a backyard fi re pit
with his wife and simply relaxing.