Try food from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica at Tacoma festival for ‘all tings Caribbean’

A new food, music and art festival will bring a taste of “all tings Caribbean” to South Tacoma on Saturday, April 6.

No, that’s not a typo!

Each of the women behind Caribbean Queens, an event that aims to celebrate the “music, food, artistry and culture of the Caribbean diaspora,” has roots in that region, as do the 20 vendors — from Panama to Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago to Jamaica and Puerto Rico.

The festival will run 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at Edison Square, an event venue equipped with a full kitchen, performance stage and mezzanine at 5415 South Tacoma Way.

Caribbean Queens is an expansion of a pop-up series that Julie Davidson spearheaded in the intimate environs of her Sixth Avenue taproom for Komadre Kombucha, which closed in 2022. Herself of Panamanian and Cuban heritage, Davidson had worked hard to highlight fellow Latina business owners through her own business.

“One of the things that I loved the most about having that brick-and-mortar was the space to collaborate and celebrate together,” she said last week. “Caribbean Queens was really born at the taproom. It was just really a lovely, scrappy little group.”

The first event, in the fall of 2022, was enough of a success that they wanted to keep it going. They found an occasional home at Parable, a McKinley Hill bookstore and boutique that frequently hosts events. Mainstays came to include AbbyGail Woods’ Trini Plate, who cooks Trinidadian dishes like curry chicken, handmade meat pies and paratha wraps; Karen Stringer of Bajan Station; and Lydia Mendez of Little Miss Sweets NYC, a gluten-free dessert company specializing in the likes of Puerto Rican flan, besitos de coco and tres leches cake.

(Mendez is also the creator of Savor Fest, a food festival that likewise showcases a diverse range of cuisines. Look for it this summer, July 14, outside Mi Centro in Hilltop.)

This trio joined Davidson, Reynolette Ettienne of Tiny Hands Ceramics and Natalie Evans of We Be JAMin Bakery to pull together all of the strings for the biggest-yet Caribbean Queens event.

They applied for and were awarded a grant through the Tacoma Arts Commission and found a title sponsor in Edison Square. The space allows them to “have lots and lots of amazing food as well as performances and product vendors,” said Davidson. They also received in-kind donations from a couple of national Latin-owned brands: Ocoa Beauty will offer hair care samples and Loisa will give out some of its organic seasonings and spices.

DJ Tremenda Diosa will set the tone starting at 11 a.m., helping Davidson introduce the rest of the day’s performers. They include Dancing Ting Seattle, singers Anthony Cole and Queen Abbo, as well as Pacific Lutheran University’s own steel pan band featuring students and alumni.

Guests can also shop for everything from sunglasses and hair clips (from COSITAS by Sarahi) to funky sculpted candles and jewelry (The Ranting Raven) or one-of-a-kind embroidered garb (Yo! It’s Cake).

Food vendors will set up both inside and out — find several food trucks and tents in the parking lot behind Edison Square, accessible through the building or from the alley between South Tacoma Way and South Puget Sound Avenue north off 56th Street.

In addition to Trini Plate, We Be JAMin and Little Miss Sweets, dig into bites from:

▪ MexiCuban Food Truck, known for “fluffy tacos” that fuse Mexican, Colombian and Cuban flavors and ingredients

▪ Coda’s Kitchen, a Jamaican catering company known for their “crack mac,” jerk chicken and peach cobbler

▪ Chammorican Barbacoa PNW, which blends Puerto Rican and Guamanian traditions

▪ Big Dawgs Hot Dogs, with hot dogs, Polish sausages, bratwurst and burgers

▪ Hot Babe Hot Sauce, known for their no-joke sauces in flavors like scotch bonnet mustard and Trini hot pepper

Families with kids will find activities including a carnival mask decoration station. Visitors can also sip on the very last bottles of Komadre Kombucha.

If this rendition goes well, Davidson said they hope to host an even larger outdoor festival next summer.

CARIBBEAN QUEENS FESTIVAL - TACOMA

▪ April 6, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., caribbeanqueens.net

▪ Edison Square, 5415 South Tacoma Way, Tacoma

▪ Free entry and family-friendly

This story was originally published April 2, 2024 at 11:00 AM.