Curry goat on date night: How a new Caribbean restaurant defies expectations

Calabash can seat 40 people in its restaurant and 250 in an adjoined event space.

Published on January 2, 2026

Calabash Caribbean's manager Carl Burnside, left, and co-owner JP Perkins take on various roles at the restaurant, including cooking the dishes.

Shelley Ho

The Abridged version:

Calabash Caribbean serves Jamaican and other Caribbean food in the former Enotria building on Del Paso Boulevard.
It’s more upscale than owner Wolete “Sunny” Atherley’s other restaurant, Dubplate Kitchen & Jamaican Cuisine in Arden Arcade.
Americans have long expected Caribbean food to be inexpensive, but a wave of high-end openings is changing that perception.

Sitting in the sunlit dining room of her new restaurant, Calabash Caribbean, the worry in Wolete “Sunny” Atherley’s voice is obvious.

She’s relaying her extensive and successful career in the restaurant industry, but the fate of her new venture is at a crossroads. Will it be a warm community hub like Dubplate Kitchen & Jamaican Cuisine, her Jamaican cafe in Arden Arcade, or will this upscale spin on Caribbean food fail to find an audience?

Calabash is in Sacramento’s Woodlake neighborhood at the intersection of Arden Way and Del Paso Boulevard. It’s in a Streamline Moderne, 1940s-era building that was home to lauded fine-dining restaurant Enotria from 1997 to 2014, then a succession of other restaurants, including Cask & Barrel and Woodlake Tavern. The space had been vacant for five years before Calabash opened.

Atherley would pass the boarded-up space where Calabash is now on her way to Restaurant Depot and wonder about it. One day in early 2025, she saw a “for sale or lease” sign. She called, hit it off with landlord David Hardie (former owner of the prior restaurants) and opened Calabash in July.

“Calabash” refers to a bowl, traditionally made from a gourd by the same name, in the Rastafarian culture in which Atherley was raised. Its multiuse functionality — it’s a ritual object as well as a serving bowl, particularly for vegan dishes — mirrors the business’ myriad purposes.

“The gourd bowl has many uses, and this space has many uses. And it’s also a community bowl,” Atherley said. “I figured, all right, since we have this space, and we have the atrium, it can be an event space and a community center. … This is just the beginning of something I’ve always dreamed of.”

After a rigorous multiweek audition, Atherley hired chef Ever Champagne to helm Calabash. While Champagne is from Jamaica and nails a spicy, savory curry goat, Atherley wants Calabash to feature foods from across the region, with an emphasis on seafood.

goat curry — Calabash Caribbean’s curry goat. (Shelley Ho)

“My goal is to incorporate other flavors of the Caribbean,” Atherley said. “I’m looking to have the flavors of Trinidad, Guyana, some South American influence.”

Atherley has reinvigorated the space, with fresh flowers and island prints on the walls. The restaurant seats 40, and the atrium space can host diners or events of up to 250 attendees. Calabash is not yet able to offer beer and wine, so the mirror-backed, marble-topped bar area is mostly devoted to juices, including a gingery mixed drink called Island Punch.

making drink — Calabash Caribbean manager Carl Burnside prepares an Island Punch. (Shelley Ho)

Entrees are priced from $21 for curry chicken or vegan callaloo pumpkin stew to $38 for a mixed seafood pepperpot, including sides that range from traditional rice and peas to the cream-based Rasta pasta. These entree prices are just a few dollars more than those at Dubplate Kitchen, where all food is served in disposable containers. Calabash’s portions are smaller and plated more carefully, and Atherley said she’s opting for more high end ingredients there.

American diners have long expected Caribbean food to be inexpensive, like other cuisines that may be unfamiliar to some U.S. customers. Yet, this perception may be changing.

In 2023, Forbes called Caribbean food “America’s new favorite food.” Then-New York Times food critic Pete Wells named Tatiana, an Afro-Caribbean fine dining concept, the city’s best restaurant that same year, and Haitian innovator Kann in Portland was named one of North America’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2025. Atherley’s timing may prove to be fortuitous.

Atherley’s road to Calabash began in her parents’ restaurants’ kitchens. Both Jamaican immigrants who immigrated to the Bronx, they found New York’s Caribbean restaurant scene too competitive and decided to try New Jersey, opening what Atherley said was one of Essex County’s first Jamaican restaurants.

For the last 25 years, Atherley’s parents have run Sunsplash Caribbean Bakery, Takeout and Juice Bar in New Jersey. Their restaurants have been family affairs, with both of her grandmothers cooking in the kitchen alongside other relatives. While Atherley’s parents worked long hours, she reveled in the warmth of her upbringing.

“I knew it took my parents out of the house, but I also realized that it built a strong sense of community,” she said. “I was never lonely. We always had other kids to play with. We always had aunts teaching us the best dance, and music was always around. … It was just a lively lifestyle.”

As is so common with folks who grow up in the industry, she initially took another path; she holds a degree in early childhood education and has worked in nonprofits. A job at Big Brothers and Sisters brought her to the Sacramento area in 2014, but she yearned for the community that restaurant work brought her, and, as a single mom of five, needed more flexibility in her working hours. Living in Rocklin, she also struggled to find the food she wanted to eat.

Calabash Caribbean’s Rasta pasta. (Shelley Ho)

Atherley is also a coffee lover and bought JD’s Cafe in Rocklin in 2016 after being a frequent customer. She soon added Jamaican patties to the menu, offered a limited menu of plate lunches on weekends and had lines out the door.

Confident that her venture had room to grow, she found a small strip mall spot in Arden Arcade and opened Dubplate in 2018. After running both places for six months and failing to find a buyer for JD’s Cafe, she closed the Rocklin business down.

Dubplate, meanwhile, celebrated its seventh anniversary on Dec. 6 with a ticketed musical bash at Calabash. And Atherley feels she has a personal mission to make Calabash succeed.

“I’m here because God put me here,” Atherley said. “I didn’t really have it as a game plan or a business plan to be here. Life led me here.”