Jerk on the button

WEST ST. PAUL — This month marks a full decade since Vincent Dennis opened a Caribbean-flavoured restaurant inside the West St. Paul Curling Club.

And although it could be assumed that a person who has spent that much time in the vicinity of rocks and rings would have picked up a thing or two about the roaring game by now, that doesn’t appear to be the case with the Jamaican-born owner of Tropical Thunder.

Not even close.

“I’ve been here since 2015 and I still don’t have a clue what I’m staring at,” Dennis, 52, says with a chuckle, seated at a table offering a perfect view of the 62-year-old club’s four curling sheets.

“Honestly, it would be so much easier if I could figure out the darned score so I know when games are about to end and I can start prepping things, but seriously, who the heck understands any of that?”

Dennis and his mother, a single parent, immigrated to Winnipeg from Clarendon, Jamaica, when he was seven, arriving in mid-December. (On the day we visited, the married father of five was wearing a dark tuque emblazoned with a Jamaican flag, in support of those suffering from the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.)

Back then, one had to walk across the tarmac after exiting the airplane. He remembers the temperature being “something crazy like minus-40.”

“I’d never seen snow before — it was complete culture shock — and I swear I got frostbite every second day that winter,” he says, talking loud enough to be heard over a soundtrack of reggae music playing on a pair of wall-mounted speakers.

An industrious sort, Dennis had three part-time jobs by the time he was 10. In addition to after-school routes delivering the Winnipeg Free Press and the Winnipeg Sun, he also washed dishes at a since-closed Sorrento’s outlet on Henderson Highway, close to where he and his mom lived in North Kildonan.

He quickly fell in love with the hustle and bustle associated with toiling in a kitchen. So much so that as a Grade 5 student at Princess Margaret School, he kept a notebook, detailing the precise type of restaurant he planned to own one day, right down to how much he intended to pay his imaginary employees.

“I’ve always enjoyed cooking,” he says, noting he wouldn’t be able to change the tire on his truck if his life depended on it, but can whip up almost any meal from scratch without referring to a recipe.

“As a kid, I made sure to have dinner ready by the time my mom got home from work, usually Jamaican favourites like cabbage and corned beef, or ackee and saltfish.”

Dennis was among the first people to get hired as a cook when Olive Garden opened a location on Reenders Drive in the mid-1980s. At 17, the company transferred him to Toronto, to work at a new franchise on Front Street.

He eventually left Olive Garden for East Side Mario’s, then Kelsey’s Original Roadhouse, where he added bartending to his resumé. (Unlike cooking, he turned out to be a “horrible” barkeep. It never mattered how many times a customer ordered a Long Island iced tea or Mai Tai through the course of an evening. He had to read his bar guide, each and every time, to mix them properly.)

Married at 27 with two kids and a third on the way, he and his wife made the decision to return to Winnipeg. Yes, he wanted to be closer to his mother, but the two of them also wished to purchase a home for their growing family, a goal he claims was next to impossible in Toronto, unless he worked “seven days a week, with five other jobs on the side” in order to make ends meet.

For the next 15 years he balanced operating a Jamaican-style food truck, also called Tropical Thunder, with a landscaping and property-maintenance company he established after realizing he was talented at that, too. He enjoyed being outside from May to September, but dreaded shovelling snow come winter, one of the services he provided.

Ten years ago, the landscaping business had become successful enough that he no longer needed to work year-round. There was one problem: As much as he and his wife adore one another, he wasn’t entirely sure she relished the thought of him being holed up at home 24-7 for months on end, he says with a wink.

Early that fall, his thoughts returned to the pretend restaurant he’d dreamt about, as a grade schooler. He put out a few feelers and discovered that the West St. Paul Curling Club was looking for somebody to take over what, at the time, was a run-of-the-mill canteen serving soft drinks, potato chips and hot dogs to members.

OK, so maybe the menu wasn’t something he was at all interested in replicating. On the other hand, the advertised schedule — mid-October to the beginning of April — would mesh perfectly with his primary occupation.

He started with burgers and fries, but drew the line at hot dogs, telling himself his skills were far beyond that, he says. At some point during his second season there, he informed management that he wanted to introduce Jamaican food, as well. They said he was welcome to try, but they expressed doubt that it would catch on.

Let’s just see, he shot back.

Ten years later, 50 per cent of the those dropping by for jerk chicken, island shrimp and oxtail have no association with the curling club whatsoever. Dennis regularly welcomes customers from as far away as Steinbach and Dominion City, people who hear about his fare largely through word of mouth. He adds that it’s not uncommon for food-delivery drivers to pop their head inside, wondering if they have the right address, unaware of the fact they were picking up their order from a curling club versus a stand-alone restaurant.

This curling season, Tropical Thunder even helped increase membership at the rink, situated just off Main Street at 431 Grassmere Rd.

“There was a married couple in here recently who said they’d been curling at another club in the city for years, but after eating here during a bonspiel last February, they decided to join West St. Paul, instead,” he boasts, mentioning that between two levels — a main-floor area and a licensed space on the second floor — there is seating for close to 140.

Besides traditional Jamaican offerings, Dennis also serves fusion dishes such as jerk-chicken poutine, jerk-chicken Alfredo and jerk-chicken quesadillas. As well, his multi-patty Rockabessa burger with all the fixings — so-named for his eldest daughter Essence whom he calls Rockabessa for Orcabessa, a Jamaican community near Ocho Rios — was a tremendous hit during this year’s Le Burger Week, the first time he participated in the annual chow-fest.

Back to curling: when it comes to trying his hand at the sport, Dennis smiles from ear to ear, asserting that isn’t something anybody will be hurrying hard to see, any time soon.

“I watch some of the guys release the stone and they look sexy as hell, with their perfect form and hair blowing in the breeze. Whenever I’ve given it a shot, I’m slip-sliding all over the place. I’m much better off parked in front of a stove, where at least I know what I’m doing.”

Tropical Thunder is open from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from noon to 9 p.m. on Fridays. It is also open for breakfast on Saturday mornings.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca