Krista Van Wagner, the bootlegger's granddaughter who brought jerk home to Lackawanna
Four Bites Show S1E9 guest offers spicy stories from her transition from Curly's chef and sauce entrepreneur to educator
What first led me to Krista Van Wagner, in 2009, was the appearance of Scotch-bonnet-pepper-dependent cuisine in Lackawanna. When Jamaican-style jerk chicken, humming with chile heat, smoked, and allspice, surfaces in a city not particularly known for its Caribbean community, you wonder.
The answer was Van Wagner and her husband Kirk. Born into the restaurant business as one of seven siblings, Van Wagner was a third-generation restaurateur who returned from the Culinary Institute of America and a globetrotting restaurant career to transform the business started by her bootlegger grandfather.
That’s how Curly’s Grille made the culinary map. Van Wagner’s Jerk Sauce is still on local shelves, including Clark’s Poultry & Seafood, Guercio’s, Premier Gourmet, The Deli, and Elm Street Bakery.
But her focus has shifted to the classroom. After going back to school for her teacher’s certificate, she’s currently working to start a high school culinary program at Lackawanna’s Global Concepts Charter School.
“I couldn't reach the bottom of the dish sink, so I couldn't do dishes for my dad until I was in sixth grade,” she said, describing her career origin story. “We started out in the basement sorting beer bottles, green and brown. Then on the weekends we got to mop and sweep the restaurant and clean the restaurant, all of us kids. You got to keep any money you found, the sunny mornings we were closed.
I swear to you, my father used to hide money in the corners. I always swept, and I always found money.”
Van Wagner turned into the kind of restaurant owner who would jump into the dish pit to bust suds if the dishie was missing, hors de combat, or overwhelmed.
Today, Van Wagner is setting up a program that will train high schoolers how to work in restaurants. Even though their restaurant education is starting much later, Van Wagner knows what it takes to get them up to speed.
Follow Van Wagner’s tale on the Four Bites Show.
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My wife found her engagement ring in a chocolate mousse dessert at Curly’s.