by Bailey White
Staff Writer
Several new businesses — the law firm of Coffman, Coleman, Andrews & Grogan and Harmony Dental Center, just to name a couple — have opened in LaVilla this year, and now their employees will soon have a place nearby to dine.
The Blue Hawaiian Cafe plans to open in a couple of months in the Harmony Center.
The restaurant will feature sub-style sandwiches on Hawaiian sweet bread.
“We’ll also have soups, salads, cheese fondue, smoothies, cakes and cookies,” said Shabazz Rah-Khem, the major stockholder in Kanani’s Sweet Cafe, the corporation that owns the business.
He’ll open for breakfast and lunch, and predicts that much of his business will be through takeout orders, though he will have indoor — and possibly outdoor — seating.
“And it will be a comfortable and relaxed place for customers who want to stay and have lunch here or bring business lunches here,” he said. “It will be casual but with great service.”
It was Rah-Khem’s mother who taught him what he knows about cooking and baking.
“She’s been a big part of this,” Rah-Khem said. “Cooking and baking is just one of things she taught me early how to do that has stuck with me.”
Before he decided to open the cafe, Rah-Khem was selling his homemade pies and cheesecakes to friends and colleagues, but he wasn’t able to sell them to area restaurants.
“For me to be able to sell them to a restaurant, they’d have to be prepared in a commercial kitchen,” he said.
With his new space he’ll be able to do that. He plans to expand that side of his business, offering cheesecakes, sweet potato pies, pumpkin pies, apple pies and his specialty, kanani pie.
“Kanani is a Hawaiian word that means ‘beautiful one,’ ” he said. “But the ingredient is a secret.”
Rah-Khem is a Washington, D.C., native and has been in Jacksonville for about two years. He joined Harmony Dental as a dental technician, and, as an employee in the LaVilla area, he experienced first hand the need for more dining options.
“I just sensed the need for more options,” he said, adding that he’s excited about his new neighborhood.
“LaVilla is really building up,” he said. “There are a lot of programs to help businesses in the area, and I can see that the City is committed to trying to turn it into a business hub.”