Dainty’s Jamaican Kitchen, a popular Colorado Springs eatery, has moved to a new location downtown. The restaurant’s owner Dainty Wheaton made the move to 302 E. Platte Avenue from its previous location in Fort Carson. Wheaton said she loved Fort Carson and will “miss the noon rush.” She believes that many of her Fort Carson customers will find her new place in downtown Colorado Springs, however.

Wheaton’s family has been involved in the restaurant business for some time. She is the latest in a long line of Jamaican women who cooked for others dating back to her great-grandmother. She began a catering business in 2002, just a few years after moving to Colorado Springs in 1998, and gained a large number of fans who loved her curry chicken and the other authentic Jamaican dishes she offered.

She opened her first restaurant in 2012 in Fountain, Colorado, and within a year, obtained a lease to open the Fort Carson spot. She says she became famous for her jerk chicken and oxtails, both which were so popular with the soldiers from the base there that she ran out of the dishes every day.

Side dishes at Dainty’s Jamaican Kitchen include steamed cabbage and rice and peas “as it’s called in Jamaica,” she said. “Peas” in Jamaica refer to a kind of small red bean. The new downtown restaurant has a small indoor dining room with a view and outdoor patio dining. It is open from 11 am to 7 pm Monday through Saturday.

Photo Source: Dainty’s Jamaican Kitchen Facebook