Sarah Kirnon facts for kids
| Born | Leicestershire, England, U.K. |
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| Cooking style | Caribbean cuisine |
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Previous restaurant(s)
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Sarah Kirnon is a talented chef from the West Indies. She used to own a popular restaurant called Miss Ollie's in Oakland, California. It served delicious Afro-Caribbean food from 2012 to 2019.
Later, Sarah decided to close Miss Ollie's. She wanted to create a special place called Sanctuary. This new place helps Black chefs, artists, and musicians grow their talents.
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Sarah Kirnon's Early Life
Sarah Kirnon was born in the 1960s in Leicestershire, England. Her family comes from the Caribbean islands of Barbados and Antigua. She proudly identifies as West Indian.
When she was four years old, Sarah moved to Gall Hill, Saint John, Barbados, to live with her grandmother. This is where she learned to love cooking! Her family grew their own food and raised animals on a farm. They used these fresh ingredients for their daily meals. When Sarah was thirteen, she moved back to England.
Later, in 1999, Sarah moved to San Francisco, USA.
Sarah Kirnon's Cooking Career
After moving to San Francisco, Sarah Kirnon worked as a chef at a few restaurants. She cooked at Emmy's Spaghetti Shack and then Front Porch. Eventually, she moved to Oakland, California, to be the chef at Hibiscus. There, she created modern Caribbean cuisine.
In January 2012, Sarah left Hibiscus. She announced that she would open her own restaurant in downtown Oakland. She named it Miss Ollie's, after her grandmother who had passed away in 2011.
Miss Ollie's Restaurant
Miss Ollie's opened in December 2012 in Swan's Marketplace in Oakland. The restaurant specialized in tasty Caribbean food. The menu included many of Sarah's favorite dishes from her childhood. These included fried chicken, saltfish and ackee, and goat curry.
In 2016, Sarah Kirnon and Miss Ollie's were featured in a documentary called Hungry. The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper named Miss Ollie's one of the top 100 restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area in both 2018 and 2019.
New Ideas for Restaurants
From September to November 2020, Sarah Kirnon was a chef-in-residence at Elda in San Francisco. This meant she was a guest chef, serving Caribbean take-out meals. Many of these dishes were from Miss Ollie's.
During this time, Sarah started thinking differently about restaurants. The COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected the restaurant business. She believed that smaller places, like pop-up restaurants, would become more common. These places have lower costs and need fewer staff.
Weeks after her time at Elda ended, Sarah announced she would close Miss Ollie's. She planned to reopen the space as Sanctuary. Sanctuary is a non-profit business incubator. This means it's a place that helps new Black chefs, musicians, artists, and other creative people start and grow their businesses.
