Grio Express Taste of Caribbean

Grio Express Taste of Caribbean operates from 4308 North State Road 7 inside the Shops at Oriole Estates, the same plaza that houses Bak A Yaad Cuisine, Singh’s Roti Delight and Five Star Bakery, making this stretch of the shopping center one of the more concentrated single-block clusters of independent Caribbean food businesses in Lauderdale Lakes. The name Grio references griot, a dish of fried, marinated pork associated with Haitian cuisine, typically cut into chunks, braised, then fried until crisp and served with pikliz, a spicy pickled cabbage and pepper slaw, and rice; the naming choice suggests a Haitian-leaning menu, distinct from the largely Jamaican character of its plaza neighbor Bak A Yaad.

The business keeps seven-day-a-week hours, opening at 8:30 in the morning and closing at 10 at night without a break in the schedule for Sundays, which is a longer and more consistent weekly schedule than several of the other Caribbean restaurants profiled in this collection. It accepts a full range of payment methods according to its directory listing, including cash, debit, all four major credit card networks, Diners Club and checks, a detail that points to a business set up to handle both quick counter transactions and larger catering-style orders.

A search of Florida corporate records under the Grio Express name turned up one closely matching entity, Grio Express Restaurant, Inc., document number P99000018404, which the state currently lists as inactive. As with other small storefronts in this collection carrying an inactive Sunbiz status, that designation more often reflects a lapsed annual filing than a closed business, particularly for a restaurant that continues to appear as open and operating across the directories checked for this profile, but it is a gap worth noting for anyone doing further due diligence on the business’s current legal structure.

No customer reviews or independent website were found for Grio Express Taste of Caribbean through the sources available for this profile, and its category listing groups it under both Caribbean and Latin American restaurant classifications, a combination that shows up periodically among South Florida’s Haitian-owned kitchens given the overlap in ingredients, particularly rice, beans, plantains and stewed meats, between Haitian cooking and the broader Latin American and Caribbean culinary traditions represented in Broward County. For residents of Lauderdale Lakes’ large Haitian community specifically, a restaurant named for one of the country’s signature dishes and open long hours seven days a week fills a specific niche among the plaza’s otherwise Jamaican-leaning food options.