Something’s Cooking: Amazing Ackee in Manchester

MANCHESTER, Conn. (WFSB) - This week we stopped by Amazing Ackee in Manchester to try some of their Jamaican food.

Owner Chantal Thomas says she sells up to 1,000 patties a week.

Amazing Ackee was set to open three months ago, but the morning she was set to open, a vehicle crashed into her restaurant.

“I could not make it up. If you were writing a script the person looking over your script would go, ‘that’s a little bit too crazy. You might want to pull back, nobody’s going to believe that happened,” says Thomas.

Thomas did not give up and built her rainbow-colored patties into an online juggernaut and farmer’s market favorite.

“This was an accident but what a happy accident,” says Thomas.

She started Amazing Ackee as a cooking blog for fun, but her readers begged to try her assortment of vegan patties. She started selling them a few at a time, and demand went up.

“I did not know that I would be here today with the business what it is, but I could not be happier,” says Thomas.

Thomas sells ten patty varieties on her website, and five varieties at weekly farmers markets. Fan favorites include the Curry Chickpea Zucchini, the Jerked Spice Eggplant, and the Amazing Ackee patty featuring ackee, the official fruit of Jamaica.

“I always say if you like food that tastes good, then you are going to like our product. It’s that simple,” says Thomas.

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