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“Opening a restaurant was just too risky of an adventure,” Carole says. “Since we moved here, we have seen a lot of restaurants open and close. This was small and easy, and I like to make sorbet.” Carole says she has been making sorbets and ice cream for friends and family the past 20 years and they have told her she does a good job getting flavors and consistency just right. “People suggested to us that we open the shop,” Carole says. Jaccar is a combination of their names.
The couple moved here from Southern California, where Carol graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. Jacky is originally from Senegal in Western Africa. Jacky, who still has a French-sounding accent, said he fell in love with St. Croix the first time they visited.
“It reminds me of Senegal with the same weather and foliage like the baobab trees,” Jacky says. “Many customs are similar too, like the mocko jumbies.”
Jacky was trained in food and beverage management at Ecole Hotelier in Nice, France, where he says he was taught to treat every business as his own.
Jacky says it has actually been a pleasure working with government agencies getting the business set up.
“Every government agency worker went out of their way to help us,” Jacky says. They officially opened the shop in mid-June with a soft opening to get the kinks out. “We are very pleased with business so far with a lot of repeat customers,” Carole says.
Jacky is the taste tester, bookkeeper and marketing manager in the business. Jacky says he also helps clean the fruit. Carole makes the sorbets out of locally grown fresh fruit.
“We want to support St. Croix farmers by buying locally grown fruit,” Carole says. At this time she has a freezer full of frozen mango pulp and carambola pulp. She says she will be ready to still serve mango sorbets when mango season is over.
The sorbets are made with fruit pulp that has been processed in a juicer, lime juice and Volcanic Nectar Blue Agave, a low-glycemic natural sweetener that is okay for diabetics. Carole says parents like the fact that the sorbet isn't made with sugar, and it is a good way to get kids to eat fruit.
“American sorbets are too sweet, all you taste is the sugar and not the fruit,” Jacky says. The cold ingredients are mixed together and churned about 20 minutes in an ice cream maker and then stored in a freezer.
The containers and spoons are made from corn and are biodegradable, and the napkins are made from recycled paper. “We are trying to be totally 'green,' buying locally grown organic fruit and not adding plastic and Styrofoam to the landfill,” Carole says.
Carole says she loves to experiment mixing different fruits, herbs and spices. Some of the tasty mixes she has come up with are a mango, pineapple, and soursop combination, a mango mint and an orange basil mix just to name a few.
The sorbets are available in containers in sizes from four to 32 ounces. They also make frozen fruit pops and homemade organic butter cookies sold in half-pound containers. They also have organic unsulfured fruits and organic gummy bears and worms.
They entered for their first time the 2010 Mango Dis and Dat cooking contest at Mango Melee for exposure and won first place for sweets and desserts in the professionals category.
The shop, painted in a soft melon and pale grape color, is located at Gallows Bay in the Arawak Building across from Gallows Bay Appliance store. They are open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more about other flavors and products, call 719-6999.
“We want to stay small and have personal contact with our customers,” Carole says. “The only thing we need is a couple of chairs.”