Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is iHeartRadio's Maryland Business Spotlight. Each week, we hear
from one local business owner letting us know where they
are in their business journey and how they got there.
I'm here today with Merreck Thompson, general manager a Blue
Caribbean restaurant. Welcome and thank you for being here. Tell
us about Blue Caribbean first of all, like where is
it located. I think Park Heights Avenue right.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Fifty four to two Park Heights Avenue. Blue Caribbean has
been around since I'd say about what nineteen eighty seven, wow,
And it was like one of the original spots that
a lot of the lot of the Caribbean people came to.
It's it's mostly Caribbean. It's I mean Caribbean and American
bar lounge. All right. A few years ago we got it.
(00:46):
It became like a restaurant. So now we're a restaurant.
So sit down restaurant. It's meansful to sitting around a
long time. It's a place that everybody came you know,
it's like a little bit like Cheers. Yeah, you know,
everybody came to you know, everybody knows your name kind
of place.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
That's what Blue Caribbean is so you guys are strictly
now a restaurant, bar lounge, right, yes, okay, very cool?
And uh a full menu. I mean, tell us, tell
us what's on the menu. What can we get a
Blue Caribbean.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
With full menus, you can get like curry goat curry chicken,
especially the jerk chicken with a special recipe that only
Blue Caribbean has stew chicken for though they don't want
anything spicy stew beef. So and then have of course
(01:35):
we have we have a bar, of course, so it
all kinds of special drinks. We have the rum punch
and I'm pretty much anything you want to drink we
have there too.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Also, yeah, it takes you trans transports you basically to
the Caribbean. So this is under new ownership on a
new management over the past year, you said, do you
hear that? Right?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
No, No, we've we've had since twenty eleven.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Oh, I'm sorry. That's fantastic. And you know it's been
open since the late eighties. You guys have been working
on it since twenty eleven. What do you why do
you think it's been around so long? I mean, these
days restaurants and bars staying open as long's it's kind
of rare. What do you atone for the longevity the
(02:17):
success of it?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, two things. One is the great food because I've
always had we like I said've probably had food there,
right sort of food is it's one of a kind.
And then next thing is it's it's a safe environment.
You can go there, enjoy yourself, hear the music you're
used to for, you know, because there's not a lot
of not a lot of places in Baltimore that has
(02:40):
like Tribbian music, reggae, soca and calypso and of course
American music. Also you know, some hip hop and R
and B, so it blends it all together. So the
place you go in and just just feel calm and
enjoy yourself. You know, the drinks aren't expensive, so it's
someplace you don't got to be a millionaire to go
(03:01):
to and have a good time.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, that's awesome. So run through if you happen, I
don't mean put you on the spot. But as far
as the entertainment, do you have something different Monday to
Tuesday to wind like is a Caribbean one day reggae
another day?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Run through?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Like what might be a schedule weekly schedule.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well, mostly we have our nightclub part is usually from
Thursday to Saturday. Okay, that's so we have like we'll
have a DJ come in and a lot of them.
We have some special DJs coming from out of town ocasion.
We have like a live like like a live group
come in, like a live We've had like, let me see,
(03:40):
We've had like General Tree, We've had some Soca artists
come in. So it's a different thing. What we do.
We put out flyers and tell anybody what different events
coming on. But most of the weeks from well from
Tuesday to Saturday, so from Tuesdays the restaurant pretty much
runs and then and so it goes that kind of direction.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Oh, very cool. So it's a restaurant and then at
some point there's you know, live music and dancing involved
as well. Yes, yes, very cool. How did you get
your start with Blue Caribbean? I mean, I know you've
been there a while. How did you get involved?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well, the ownership we all do each other, you know. So,
I mean, I i'd graduated college a while back, because
I was and I knew that I was in I
was already in the promotion business. So when the owner
when the owner bought that we necessarily it was like, hey,
you're going to come over here, and I was like, hey, sure,
you know we can, we can work together. So that
(04:37):
that became my thing at that point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So, uh, you know all I know, my family was
in the restaurant business. We didn't have like live music
or whatever. But that is, man, that is hard work.
That is twenty four seven And uh is that something
that you enjoy being a part of? Is? Is? Is?
Does it get exhaus sometimes just working that kind of business? Uh?
(05:03):
I always have such respect for people who are in
that kind of field because it's hard.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well let's think about it. Think about the rest of
it that I noticed since I've been doing it is
that you gotta love it. One of those things. It's
not like it's something that you can just you can
just do. You know, you gotta really love the satisfaction
in people's face when you have some good food and
the enjoyings that they're laughing and joking.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So it's like like during the summer on the Sundays,
something that we'd have like like people have the back open,
so we have to have a back area. We come
in early, so it's just something you have to really love.
You can't. It's not a restaurant, Binus I said, it's not.
It's not a it's not a job. It's more of
a it's all of a joy enjoy in it. You're
(05:46):
not going to be able to do it because because
it can be frustrating, you know what I'm saying, Because
you don't get all the everybody that want to come
out don't come out all the time. Right, So but
you gotta always love it. You gotta always say, look,
I'm gonna make the freshes foods. People enjoy themselves, had
a music beat loud, and people can just have fun
and just to be able to free themselves because life
(06:06):
can be hard. You have some place to free yourself.
That's important. So it's like a civic service, you know,
people who enjoy themselves without being without feeling pressure, just
to just have a good time, have fun.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
That's such a good point. Do it. You have to
have a passion for it. It's a part of your lifestyle.
I get it, I really do. So when you look
ahead of a Blue Caribbean for this summer and maybe
three years down the line, where do you see the future?
I mean you guys have been so successful. Is it
just business as usual and that's success or or what
(06:38):
kind of future plans do you have.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
We're trying to expand it necessarily, like have some more
live bands coming on a regular basis and have more
of a variety, you know what I'm saying. What we
want to do so, I mean expan our menu. That's
our ultimate goal over the next few years, you know.
So that's one of the reasons why we got involved
with the preweek scenario just so so more so more
(07:04):
like an American crowd can feel and enjoy us. Also,
I mean, we've been here a long time and the
goal is to be here, be here a now, the
ten twenty years down the line.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
So tell me a little bit about this Preakness is
coming up. So tell me how you're involved. How they
got you involved with the Preakness Blue Caribbean.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, well, what we decided, well we talked to Parkeist
Renaissance and the previous people and then it was like, hey,
we have tickets. What we'd like to do is we'd
like necessarily have happy we able to buy tickets from
your establishment. We're like, well, okay, that's interesting, and they
(07:43):
were like and and in fact not mean back up
a little little bit a few years back, like right right,
we were part of when Prenus opened it up. We'll
open back up after COVID scenario, so that what they
did they had us have a little booth in there,
so some local restaurants and we're in there from then,
all right, so we are we were dealing with preachtue
(08:05):
from then, So when they hadn't had a prequel going on,
we're like, hey, sure, let's we can do that. We
can necessarily we can put put your tickets online because
we're trying to we want treatments to be a success
all the time. The pre week is Prenance is part
of us because we're in the neighborhood. We're like, we're
a few blocks away where, you know, so we've always
been there. So we wanted to be a part of
Pregnans and have to celebrate it because especially what one
(08:27):
hundred and fiftieth, one hundred and fifty years of anything
is a long time, yeah, you know, and we've been
around there since since the eighties, so we've been a
part of prektice a long time. So we wanted to
show our support and help the necessarily and now the
press spread the words for prickness within our community, which
is the Caribbean and the local Parkivest community, because you know,
(08:47):
Park Heights is part of freakness. Is that's what prectice
has always been, you know, So that's the important part.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
That's awesome. And do you find during the week of
prickness and especially that weekend, you get a little kicking
business just from people coming in a.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Little bit, I mean never on the real having concept
a lot of freakness. A lot of times pregnance is
you know, it's a little bits, it's can be a
little slower, not terrible. So only because they close down
parts of the street. Right since we're right in front
of pregnans, some of the streets is gonna be gonna
be shut off. But we still maintain a good crowd
and reference to people because what we're having is we're
(09:21):
having an event for pregnance that we're having like have
people come in and just hang out and watched and
watched and watch the races right there, you know, say
we're having that as part of our pregness prede celebration
for one hundred and fiftieth So there's a really big event,
really important of it. And it's the last Preakness for
a couple of years too, so you know, people have
to remember that we're not gonna have Preakness next year
(09:42):
because it's because of renovations.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Oh right, that's right. Holy yeah, all right, Well man,
Blue Caribbean sounds like the place to be. Is there
anything else you want to mention about your business? Uh
that we haven't covered?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Go ahead? Well, two things. One, we are having an
event on on on Friday, which is Black I Susan Day.
We're having an event that day all night till two am.
We're having a having it come DJ's coming from out
of town. And we're also having like I said, we're
open from from two on Saturday. So you can come
(10:16):
out there and watch and watch it on all our
TVs and enjoy yourself, you know, and please come out
to Blue Caribbean. We'll showly some you're not gonna have
Caribbean food like you have from the Blue Caribbean.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Oh man, I'd love to check it out, man, Park
Heights Avenue many times. Yeah, man, I'm doing absolutely So.
It's fifty four zero two Park Heights Avenue, right, Yes,
all right, where else can people go to besides the
actual restaurant socials website to learn more?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, well, our instagram is Blue crim bar Lounge, Blue Cribbing,
Blue Caribbean Underscore. So that's our, that's our that's our Instagram.
You can go to Instagram and here I see all
the events that's coming up and even shille what's going
on for the past events.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Awesome. Merek Thompson, general manager of Blue Caribbean, thank you
so much for this introduction to your long standing restaurant.
And I'm so glad you're involved with Preakness. Best luck
with all of that, and thank you so much for
your time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Thank you very much for having me, having me on,
It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's Maryland Business Spotlight.
This is iHeartRadio's Maryland Business Spotlight. Each week, we hear
from one local business owner letting us know where they
are in their business journey and how they got there.
I'm here today with Merreck Thompson, general manager a Blue
Caribbean restaurant. Welcome and thank you for being here. Tell
us about Blue Caribbean first of all, like where is
it located. I think Park Heights Avenue right.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Fifty four to two Park Heights Avenue. Blue Caribbean has
been around since I'd say about what nineteen eighty seven, wow,
And it was like one of the original spots that
a lot of the lot of the Caribbean people came to.
It's it's mostly Caribbean. It's I mean Caribbean and American
bar lounge. All right. A few years ago we got it.
(00:46):
It became like a restaurant. So now we're a restaurant.
So sit down restaurant. It's meansful to sitting around a
long time. It's a place that everybody came you know,
it's like a little bit like Cheers. Yeah, you know,
everybody came to you know, everybody knows your name kind
of place.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
That's what Blue Caribbean is so you guys are strictly
now a restaurant, bar lounge, right, yes, okay, very cool?
And uh a full menu. I mean, tell us, tell
us what's on the menu. What can we get a
Blue Caribbean.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
With full menus, you can get like curry goat curry chicken,
especially the jerk chicken with a special recipe that only
Blue Caribbean has stew chicken for though they don't want
anything spicy stew beef. So and then have of course
(01:35):
we have we have a bar, of course, so it
all kinds of special drinks. We have the rum punch
and I'm pretty much anything you want to drink we
have there too.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Also, yeah, it takes you trans transports you basically to
the Caribbean. So this is under new ownership on a
new management over the past year, you said, do you
hear that? Right?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
No, No, we've we've had since twenty eleven.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Oh, I'm sorry. That's fantastic. And you know it's been
open since the late eighties. You guys have been working
on it since twenty eleven. What do you why do
you think it's been around so long? I mean, these
days restaurants and bars staying open as long's it's kind
of rare. What do you atone for the longevity the
(02:17):
success of it?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, two things. One is the great food because I've
always had we like I said've probably had food there,
right sort of food is it's one of a kind.
And then next thing is it's it's a safe environment.
You can go there, enjoy yourself, hear the music you're
used to for, you know, because there's not a lot
of not a lot of places in Baltimore that has
(02:40):
like Tribbian music, reggae, soca and calypso and of course
American music. Also you know, some hip hop and R
and B, so it blends it all together. So the
place you go in and just just feel calm and
enjoy yourself. You know, the drinks aren't expensive, so it's
someplace you don't got to be a millionaire to go
(03:01):
to and have a good time.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, that's awesome. So run through if you happen, I
don't mean put you on the spot. But as far
as the entertainment, do you have something different Monday to
Tuesday to wind like is a Caribbean one day reggae
another day?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Run through?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Like what might be a schedule weekly schedule.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well, mostly we have our nightclub part is usually from
Thursday to Saturday. Okay, that's so we have like we'll
have a DJ come in and a lot of them.
We have some special DJs coming from out of town ocasion.
We have like a live like like a live group
come in, like a live We've had like, let me see,
(03:40):
We've had like General Tree, We've had some Soca artists
come in. So it's a different thing. What we do.
We put out flyers and tell anybody what different events
coming on. But most of the weeks from well from
Tuesday to Saturday, so from Tuesdays the restaurant pretty much
runs and then and so it goes that kind of direction.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Oh, very cool. So it's a restaurant and then at
some point there's you know, live music and dancing involved
as well. Yes, yes, very cool. How did you get
your start with Blue Caribbean? I mean, I know you've
been there a while. How did you get involved?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well, the ownership we all do each other, you know. So,
I mean, I i'd graduated college a while back, because
I was and I knew that I was in I
was already in the promotion business. So when the owner
when the owner bought that we necessarily it was like, hey,
you're going to come over here, and I was like, hey, sure,
you know we can, we can work together. So that
(04:37):
that became my thing at that point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So, uh, you know all I know, my family was
in the restaurant business. We didn't have like live music
or whatever. But that is, man, that is hard work.
That is twenty four seven And uh is that something
that you enjoy being a part of? Is? Is? Is?
Does it get exhaus sometimes just working that kind of business? Uh?
(05:03):
I always have such respect for people who are in
that kind of field because it's hard.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well let's think about it. Think about the rest of
it that I noticed since I've been doing it is
that you gotta love it. One of those things. It's
not like it's something that you can just you can
just do. You know, you gotta really love the satisfaction
in people's face when you have some good food and
the enjoyings that they're laughing and joking.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So it's like like during the summer on the Sundays,
something that we'd have like like people have the back open,
so we have to have a back area. We come
in early, so it's just something you have to really love.
You can't. It's not a restaurant, Binus I said, it's not.
It's not a it's not a job. It's more of
a it's all of a joy enjoy in it. You're
(05:46):
not going to be able to do it because because
it can be frustrating, you know what I'm saying, Because
you don't get all the everybody that want to come
out don't come out all the time. Right, So but
you gotta always love it. You gotta always say, look,
I'm gonna make the freshes foods. People enjoy themselves, had
a music beat loud, and people can just have fun
and just to be able to free themselves because life
(06:06):
can be hard. You have some place to free yourself.
That's important. So it's like a civic service, you know,
people who enjoy themselves without being without feeling pressure, just
to just have a good time, have fun.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
That's such a good point. Do it. You have to
have a passion for it. It's a part of your lifestyle.
I get it, I really do. So when you look
ahead of a Blue Caribbean for this summer and maybe
three years down the line, where do you see the future?
I mean you guys have been so successful. Is it
just business as usual and that's success or or what
(06:38):
kind of future plans do you have.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
We're trying to expand it necessarily, like have some more
live bands coming on a regular basis and have more
of a variety, you know what I'm saying. What we
want to do so, I mean expan our menu. That's
our ultimate goal over the next few years, you know.
So that's one of the reasons why we got involved
with the preweek scenario just so so more so more
(07:04):
like an American crowd can feel and enjoy us. Also,
I mean, we've been here a long time and the
goal is to be here, be here a now, the
ten twenty years down the line.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
So tell me a little bit about this Preakness is
coming up. So tell me how you're involved. How they
got you involved with the Preakness Blue Caribbean.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, well, what we decided, well we talked to Parkeist
Renaissance and the previous people and then it was like, hey,
we have tickets. What we'd like to do is we'd
like necessarily have happy we able to buy tickets from
your establishment. We're like, well, okay, that's interesting, and they
(07:43):
were like and and in fact not mean back up
a little little bit a few years back, like right right,
we were part of when Prenus opened it up. We'll
open back up after COVID scenario, so that what they
did they had us have a little booth in there,
so some local restaurants and we're in there from then,
all right, so we are we were dealing with preachtue
(08:05):
from then, So when they hadn't had a prequel going on,
we're like, hey, sure, let's we can do that. We
can necessarily we can put put your tickets online because
we're trying to we want treatments to be a success
all the time. The pre week is Prenance is part
of us because we're in the neighborhood. We're like, we're
a few blocks away where, you know, so we've always
been there. So we wanted to be a part of
Pregnans and have to celebrate it because especially what one
(08:27):
hundred and fiftieth, one hundred and fifty years of anything
is a long time, yeah, you know, and we've been
around there since since the eighties, so we've been a
part of prektice a long time. So we wanted to
show our support and help the necessarily and now the
press spread the words for prickness within our community, which
is the Caribbean and the local Parkivest community, because you know,
(08:47):
Park Heights is part of freakness. Is that's what prectice
has always been, you know, So that's the important part.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
That's awesome. And do you find during the week of
prickness and especially that weekend, you get a little kicking
business just from people coming in a.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Little bit, I mean never on the real having concept
a lot of freakness. A lot of times pregnance is
you know, it's a little bits, it's can be a
little slower, not terrible. So only because they close down
parts of the street. Right since we're right in front
of pregnans, some of the streets is gonna be gonna
be shut off. But we still maintain a good crowd
and reference to people because what we're having is we're
(09:21):
having an event for pregnance that we're having like have
people come in and just hang out and watched and
watched and watch the races right there, you know, say
we're having that as part of our pregness prede celebration
for one hundred and fiftieth So there's a really big event,
really important of it. And it's the last Preakness for
a couple of years too, so you know, people have
to remember that we're not gonna have Preakness next year
(09:42):
because it's because of renovations.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Oh right, that's right. Holy yeah, all right, Well man,
Blue Caribbean sounds like the place to be. Is there
anything else you want to mention about your business? Uh
that we haven't covered?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Go ahead? Well, two things. One, we are having an
event on on on Friday, which is Black I Susan Day.
We're having an event that day all night till two am.
We're having a having it come DJ's coming from out
of town. And we're also having like I said, we're
open from from two on Saturday. So you can come
(10:16):
out there and watch and watch it on all our
TVs and enjoy yourself, you know, and please come out
to Blue Caribbean. We'll showly some you're not gonna have
Caribbean food like you have from the Blue Caribbean.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Oh man, I'd love to check it out, man, Park
Heights Avenue many times. Yeah, man, I'm doing absolutely So.
It's fifty four zero two Park Heights Avenue, right, Yes,
all right, where else can people go to besides the
actual restaurant socials website to learn more?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, well, our instagram is Blue crim bar Lounge, Blue Cribbing,
Blue Caribbean Underscore. So that's our, that's our that's our Instagram.
You can go to Instagram and here I see all
the events that's coming up and even shille what's going
on for the past events.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Awesome. Merek Thompson, general manager of Blue Caribbean, thank you
so much for this introduction to your long standing restaurant.
And I'm so glad you're involved with Preakness. Best luck
with all of that, and thank you so much for
your time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Thank you very much for having me, having me on,
It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's Maryland Business Spotlight.
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