After nearly two years of operating the Memphis Jamaican Kitchen out of a food truck in Downtown Memphis, Ryan and Ebony Meeks are opening a brick-and-mortar location in the Medical District.

This new location, which the Meeks hope will be fully open in February, will be in a 1,800-square-foot building at 1354 Madison Ave., just east of Cleveland Street. The space will be able to accommodate about 20 customers, Ebony Meeks said Friday.

“It will be a quick-service restaurant that offers dine-in for customers who want to sit down and enjoy their food and not have to travel with it and take it home or what have you,” she said.

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The original Memphis Jamaican Kitchen food truck opened at 237 Vance Ave. in March 2023 and will remain there even after the new location opens, Meeks said.

“We feel that we have really made great connections in the community around B.B. King (Boulevard) and Vance. We want our customers who go up to the food truck and get something to eat there to continue to have that ability,” Meeks said.

Those connections proved fruitful in May 2023, when someone stole the food truck from the spot where the Meeks parked it overnight. They spread the word on social media, and people who loved both the Meeks and their food mobilized. Someone spotted the truck in New Chicago, and the Meeks were able to recover it with minimal damage or theft.

Now, they’re growing their enterprise, and plan to hire new people to help run both locations.

“We are in the process of really trying to figure out what is the optimal kind of configuration here,” she said. “There are a couple of family members who helped us out over the last year or so, but we’re also hoping to expand and bring in new people who can embody what we call the real Jamaican way, which is great quality food and excellent customer service.”

Ryan and Ebony met in Jamaica in 2011. Ryan is a native of the island, and Ebony was there on vacation.

“We had a really great conversation. He laughed at my jokes so I thought that was really great. We exchanged numbers and when he called me, he was actually in Atlanta at his aunt’s restaurant,” she said. “So we struck up a friendship and got to know each other after that.”

They kept in touch and their romance blossomed, leading Ryan to eventually move to Memphis. They’ve been married for 10 years and will celebrate the second anniversary of the Memphis Jamaican Kitchen in March.

The new location will also allow Ryan a chance to add some new dishes to the menu, he said Friday.

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“We’re gonna have several new dishes. We’re gonna have a dish called ‘rundown’ that most Americans aren’t familiar with,” he said. “We’re gonna do most likely some authentic Jamaican stuff, like seasoned rice where we use a sardine rice and different vegetables to put it together.

“It’s some authentic Jamaican stuff that I can’t really name to you right now, but I know rundown is coming for sure; coconut shrimp is coming for sure; and coconut fish is coming for sure.”