Singh’s Roti Shop is a restaurant and bar located in South Richmond Hill, Queens. Singh’s Roti Shop is one of the most iconic and representative West Indian restaurants in South Richmond Hill (a neighborhood also known as “Little Guyana”). Singh’s Roti Shop is one of the larger businesses of the area and is incredibly hard to miss. The shop’s awning is a bright yellow with large red writing and bold green palm trees on the ends, most likely to appeal to a Caribbean demographic. At night, there are bright flashing neon signs of the beers served at the bar. Once someone steps into Singh’s Roti Shop, there is a very distinct smell of curries that fills the potential customer’s lungs while the eyes linger to the baked goods just ahead. To the left of the potential customer is the bar, usually holding no one in the daytime, but a large group of men gathered around a television screen at night watching that night’s cricket game. To the right are tables and chairs filled with children waiting for their parents to come back with foods. Straight ahead there is the aisle with a long line of customers waiting for the women behind the counters to serve them. In front of the line of customers is the main reason for the restaurant: the food. The food is displayed in a long glass case stretching from end to end of the facility. Behind the counter and glass case, the workers taking orders and serving food, and behind the workers is the kitchen with the male cooks and male servers constantly bringing out different trays of food waiting to be sold and eaten.
Singh’s Roti Shop’s story begins in the early 90s when, according to their website, “when a family decided that they wanted to open up a restaurant that catered to the West Indian community serving home made dishes from the islands in Queens, N.Y.” This statement seems to embody the exact decision that any immigrant opening up a restaurant in New York City would want to make. This is the motivation for many immigrants and the Singh family who opened Singh’s Roti Shop used that motivation just as well. The 90s were the beginning years of a great immigration movement from the West Indies to the United States. Thus, the time that this restaurant opened was the time that business would be at its peak. With the great amount of West Indian immigrants moving to the U.S., Singh’s Roti Shop was serving its purpose well. Eventually the restaurant had to expand due to popularity creating what is now recognized as the iconic shop. “With the opening of this new restaurant came a larger menu with more delicious dishes, a bar for customers to enjoy a drink and entertainment on the weekends.” West Indians now had a place they could gather to with familiar faces to enjoy the foods of their home and enjoy the sport of their country (cricket) with a popular pastime of social drinking. Following the footsteps of Singh’s Roti Shop, there are now many more restaurants and stores on the whole that cater to the West Indian community looking for a little piece of their old home in their new home.
Singh’s Roti Shop is convincing in serving its purpose. The way the restaurant is set up appeals to the most important social aspects of the West Indian culture. The shop accounts for the heart of any culture – the food. The menu includes curries (meats and vegetables), chow miens, fried rice, roti, and baked goods (utilizing the ingredients from tropical islands – coconuts, plantains, cassavas (yuccas)). The restaurant then accommodates its customers to the most popular form of entertainment of the West Indies: the sport of cricket. With the bar separate from the restaurant, families are without worry and bar-goers are still able to enjoy their own experiences. The restaurant is also incredibly large, and although the line of customers sometimes ends outside the doors, customers have the choice of staying in and eating or taking their food out. Overall, the ambiance is lively and inviting to the West Indian community. The food and arrangements are rich with West Indian culture, and Singh’s Roti Shop does an excellent job of keeping the atmosphere and West Indian culture authentic within its doors.
