Errol's Caribbean Delights, the Flatbush Avenue institution known for oxtail, curry goat and hard dough bread, plans to close its doors on Saturday, October 24, after more than 25 years serving the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Hawthorne Street. The owners, who are in their 80s, are retiring to spend more time with their grandchildren, workers told News 12.
Word of the closing has spread fast through Little Caribbean, and customers have been showing up to say goodbye. As reported by News 12 Brooklyn, regular Renee Rogers said seeing the closing sign posted was upsetting, recalling that she has visited the restaurant since high school and that her mother often bought escovitch fish there. Rogers called Errol's one of the neighborhood's staples, noting it's also known for cakes made for baby showers.
Inga-Lee Black, who is originally from Jamaica, told the station the closing made her upset because the restaurant feels like home and evokes the island for her. She said she had a Jamaican breakfast there Thursday morning and planned to return for dinner the same day, adding that she intends to visit every day until the doors close for good. Customer C.J. Mitchell said the owners fed him many times over the years and that he wishes them well, adding that twenty-five years was a good time to say goodbye and that customers would miss them. Mitchell said he plans to bring flowers and a handwritten card to the owners before the restaurant shuts down.
A Jamaican Immigrant's Bakery Grew Into a Flatbush Fixture
The business traces back to fall 2001, when Jamaican immigrant Errol Miller opened it at 661 Flatbush Avenue as Errol's Bakery and Catering, according to Errol's own account of its history. It started with hard dough bread and pastries before expanding into hot Caribbean meals like oxtail and curry goat, and the company was officially renamed Errol's Caribbean Delights Inc. in 2018. Per News 12, the restaurant had a business partner who passed away a little more than a year before this closing, and the remaining owners say they are tired and ready for their next chapter.
The owners' exit comes nearly a decade after the restaurant nearly didn't make it this far. In late 2016, landlord 2 Hawthorn Street Associates LLC sought to evict the bakery after its 10-year, $3,500-a-month lease expired that May, attempting to raise the rent to $5,000, Patch reported at the time. Anti-gentrification group Equality for Flatbush organized demonstrations outside the bakery, including a protest held during a January 2017 snowstorm, and an online petition to save Errol's gathered nearly 1,500 signatures, according to a report from BKReader.
Community Pressure Bought the Restaurant Almost a Decade
That grassroots push worked. Following the community pressure and legal support, Errol's secured a new lease in February 2017 that allowed Miller to keep operating for almost another decade, through October 2026, Patch reported. News 12 notes that the owners were scheduled for eviction in late 2016 and 2017 before the new lease let them remain open for roughly another ten years. Longtime customer Kay told the station that Flatbush is a West Indian-built community, a sentiment echoed by regulars who say Errol's stood out among the area's many restaurants serving similar fare.
Errol's sits within Little Caribbean, the cultural district that Flatbush was officially designated in September 2017 through efforts led by activist Shelley Worrell and the organization I AM caribBEING, according to DNAinfo. The district spans commercial corridors along Flatbush, Church, Nostrand and Utica avenues, created specifically to highlight and protect Caribbean-owned small businesses in the area.
Part of a Wider Pattern of Closures Along Flatbush Avenue
Errol's departure follows the loss of other long-standing Caribbean food spots in the neighborhood, including Lord's Bakery on Nostrand Avenue, which abruptly closed in March 2024 after operating for several decades, as News 12 The Bronx reported. Community leaders have pointed to gentrification and rising operating costs as heavy pressures on businesses that don't own their commercial properties. About 20% of New York City's 8.8 million residents trace their roots to the Caribbean, with the highest concentration in Central Brooklyn neighborhoods like Flatbush and East Flatbush, according to National Geographic.
A 2022 Commercial District Needs Assessment from the NYC Department of Small Business Services found that 46% of Flatbush residents are foreign-born, while local commercial corridors continue to face high storefront vacancy rates that cut into foot traffic for neighboring small businesses. That backdrop has fed into fresh policy debates. In September 2026, the New York City Council held hearings on Council Member Gale Brewer's Storefront Business Bill of Rights, which would mandate one-year lease extensions and cap rent increases for storefront tenants in good standing, per The Real Deal.
At the state level, lawmakers this month considered Senate Bill S8319 and Assembly Bill A5568A, known as the Small Business Rent Stabilization Act, which would create a Commercial Rent Guidelines Board to set annual rent caps and require default 10-year renewal options, according to a Holland & Knight analysis. Commercial renters in New York City currently have no statutory right to automatic lease renewal or rent regulation, which is part of why Errol's 2017 lease victory was seen locally as a rare win. For now, though, the closing at Flatbush Avenue and Hawthorne Street is being remembered by regulars not as a defeat but as an earned retirement — one more chapter closing on a Little Caribbean landmark that outlasted an eviction fight but couldn't outlast time.
