Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, Chris Taylor developed a love for food while cooking on a charcoal stove alongside his great-grandmother — a woman he simply called “Granny.”
"I always had this passion for food," he said. "I knew that was where I was going to end up."
Taylor arrived in Canada at age 13, settling with his mom and three sisters in Rexdale, a neighbourhood in northwest Toronto.
Starting at age 15, he gained experience and honed his skills at a fast-food chain, a Ukrainian eatery, a golf club, and a conference centre before landing at a busy Mediterranean restaurant.
Taylor spent eight years mastering Mediterranean cuisine before deciding it was time to open his own restaurant.
Taylor and his wife, Aretha Horton-Taylor, opened Chris Jerk Caribbean Bistro in the Scarborough area of the East End of Toronto in 2013.
"I really pushed him to do it. I told him, 'You're so creative. I'll help you,'" said Horton-Taylor, who runs the business with Taylor and their son.
The restaurant's signature dish and Taylor's unique creation — the jerk chicken shawarma — combines Mediterranean and Jamaican flavours. With a little Canadian thrown in there too.
The chicken is marinated with jerk spices, slow-cooked on a rotisserie grill, and then served in a wrap or with rice, peas, vegetables, and fried plantain.
There's also a jerk chicken poutine, which includes the classic Canadian ingredients of fries, gravy, and cheese curds. Taylor tops it with a generous portion of jerk chicken shawarma.
"It was definitely an original idea," he said. "I haven't heard of anyone trying to duplicate it."
Helping expand access to credit
Taylor is a long-time client of TD, as an individual and for his business.
He went through the TD Black Entrepreneur Credit Access Program, an initiative the Bank launched in 2023 that is designed to help Black customers and businesses access capital and financial advice.
Historically, Black entrepreneurs have faced barriers trying to access financing, said Faith Biyapo, Regional Manager on the Black Community Business Development team at TD.
"The main focus of the program is to provide credit and financial support to these individuals and businesses that have experienced barriers to doing business," he said.
Some of the barriers might include being subjected to extra scrutiny or invasive questions when trying to cash or deposit a cheque, Biyapo said.
"Sometimes they are regulars at the institution. But they are still treated like they are coming in for the first time," he said.
Accessing credit can be a challenge for Black entrepreneurs, especially if they immigrated to Canada, because they might not have employment history or have access to networks or intergenerational wealth, Biyapo said.
"We try to go beyond the quantitative ratios and assessments in the credit application," he said.
"This means we try to understand the business owner and their history, what their knowledge is about their sector and how long they've been in that sector," he said.
"And we'd be looking at their capacity to pay back the debt. It's about taking time to understand the customer, understand their business, and see if we can do something.”
Opening a second Chris Jerk restaurant in Markham
With a busy restaurant in Scarborough, a stream of loyal customers, and catering requests, the Chris Jerk team needed more space.
The demand for catering was massive, and the business was unable to accommodate the size of the orders in the Scarborough location, Taylor said.
With support from the Black Entrepreneur Credit Access program, Taylor and his family were able to open a second Chris Jerk location in Markham, a city north of Toronto.
"We went from 1,000 sq. ft to 5,000 sq. ft and we would not have been able to do it without TD," Horton-Taylor said.
"Just the equipment alone in the new space helps us do large-scale catering. These bigger events are something we want to do more of in the future."