The owners of a catering and food truck business specializing in African fusion dishes are branching out with their first brick-and-mortar location.
Kirel Shaw and Myke Worthem co-own Street Chef Shaw, a food truck and catering service they founded three years ago. Shaw serves as executive chef, cooking up East African-inspired dishes ranging from tacos and pulled pork to curry rice and consommé.
Shaw and Worthem plan to open the restaurant in November at 1539 Plainfield Ave. NE, the former location of Rinaldi’s Pizza and Sub Shop. Rinaldi’s closed its Plainfield location in June, citing staffing shortages in a Facebook post announcing the closure.
The co-owners of Street Chef Shaw have been friends since fifth grade and grew up together in the Creston neighborhood, where they’re excited to return to open their first restaurant.
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The idea for the food truck came to them in 2020, when Shaw, who has 15 years of experience in restaurant kitchens, was making free meals for friends and community members who were struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic. When the food was well-received, Shaw said the “light switch turned on” as he realized he had recipes worth sharing.
Since then, the food truck has taken off and expanded into a catering business, where the duo serve birthdays, weddings and corporate events. Now, they’re excited to take the next step by opening a restaurant in the neighborhood where they grew up.
They said the food truck business has been doing well and opening a physical location, while not part of the original plan for Street Chef Shaw, felt like the “next obvious move.”
“You’re limited in space and limited what you can carry in the (food) truck, so it’s difficult to venture out in the way we know Kirel’s capable of doing,” Worthem said.
The new restaurant, which has yet to be given an official name, will feature an expanded menu building on the food truck’s African-inspired roots.
“I’m switching up the menu but (keeping) all our original favorites that everyone loves,” Worthem said. “It’ll give us the opportunity to introduce something new, but we’ll start off with the food everyone knows and loves. (We’ll) continue to expand on the menu that Kirel created and introduce something different when the time comes.”
Shaw and Worthem signed a lease for the Plainfield location last month. The restaurant, which they expect to open in mid to late November following a few small renovations and inspections, will be takeout only.
They plan to continue running the food truck in tandem with the restaurant, relying on the bricks-and-mortar space to bolster operations during the winter off season.
“Us coming back into the Creston area is like coming home to where our roots are from, where we’re basing this whole business also off of (our) roots and giving back. That’s the intentionality behind all of this,” Shaw said. “(Creston) is where it was all built, for sure.”
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