JACOB’S Restaurant’s Soul Food & Salad Bar Treasures

by: New York Global.biz May 2011

Last seen live on ABC TV, hosting their SECOND ANNUAL THANKSGIVING DAY FREE HOSPITALITY FEAST, on November 27, 2010, Jacob’s Restaurant’s Soul Food and Salad Bar’s popularity occurred with their first “Miracle on 373 Lenox Avenue, Harlem, New York City” location. Situated on southeast Lenox Avenue and West 129th Street’s corners, Jacob’s illuminated, zesty restaurant exterior is seen, from as far away as the 126th Street, southeast corner of Lenox Avenue.

The architectural ingenuity of Jacob’s Soul Food Salad Bar and Restaurant’s embodies their huge signage on their red canopy, stretching across the front of their facility’s large, oblong windows, covering the upper half of the restaurant’s exterior.

During the fall 2009 Mr. Rachid Niang, the mid 30’s, brilliant, civic-minded Senegalese owner of Jacob’s Restaurant’s Soul Food and Mrs. Kim Niang, his Trinidadian, mid 30’s restaurant partner and administrator, held fundraisers for New York City Councilwoman’s Inez Dickens and New York City Comptroller and 2009 Mayoral Candidate William Thompson, Jr.

Since their May 15, 2009 Grand Opening, Jacob’s Restaurant Soul Food Salad Bar’s hygiene standards remained apparent. Their cleanliness includes enabling diners to sanitize their hands, after entering this restaurant and turning left, where an automatic, hand-sanitizer faces them, prior to approaching this restaurant’s salad bars.

Without public funds, approx. 300 New Yorkers’ experienced Jacob’s Restaurant’s Soul Food and Salad Bar’s FIRST ANNUAL THANKSGIVING DAY FREE HOSPITALITY FEAST, in November 2009. Guests gathered around Grammy Award Winner Roberta Flack, who autographed and distributed her free Xmas Carols’ CD, while Andre Smith, her talented back-up band singer, and popular Manhattan Sugar Bar’s host, sang with their keyboard player.

Black History became a permanent fixation in February 2010 when the proprietors’ private editions' 12” x 15” framed, charcoal-sketched, portraits graced Jacob’s Restaurant’s Soul Food and Salad Bar walls. There are portraits of Rev. Jesse Jackson, Dr. King, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Sojourner Truth’ and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Added to the Niangs’ exemplary community leadership, their philanthropy deserves citation, also shown with their daily distribution of uneaten foods, provided to Harlem area churches.

In May 2010, weeks before the Niangs opened their second Jacob’s Restaurant Soul Food and Salad Bar, at 2695 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, they held a private fundraiser for Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition.

Pulling out all stops, a SECOND ANNUAL THANKSGIVIG DAY FREE HOSPITALITY FEAST on November 27, 2010, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, took place at both Jacob’s Restaurant’s Soul Food and Salad Bar’s Lenox Avenue and Frederick Douglas Boulevard locations, serving approximately 425 people.

Though R&B and other legendary music genres’ music videos enhance the pleasure of dining at Jacob’s seven days per week, live entertainment thrives here. Since October 5, 2009, from 1:00 pm, to 6:00 pm, Bonicella Lewis the sultry, five octaves AINT MISBEHAVIN Broadway musical songstress, and keyboardist Roger Anderson headline Gospel/Jazz Sundays at Jacob’s Restaurant and Salad Bar. From 6:00 pm, Fridays and Saturdays, Jacob’s rocks, when Cody West, the multi-talented singer-guitarist and his band performs.

Despite their 40 seats’ dining capacity, Jacob’s Restaurant’s diners stand in long lines waiting to pay for their meals, during lunch, dinner and weekends, at Jacobs. Sometimes local and out of New York City Borough, among occasional, out-of-state customers are overheard suggesting that a Jacob’s Restaurant opens in their neighborhoods.

Rachid Niang

We are here to serve you, and make your experience at Jacob Resturant of Harlem a wonderful one. If there is anything that you think we need to do better or maybe even need to start having on the menu please tell us your thoughts...