Kenyan’s curry brought big flavor to small spot
He emailed me recently to report that Lydiah’s was closing. It ends its five-year run on March 16. The space will become a home for ATM machines.
“A storefront serving homemade Kenyan curry is a gem that Pittsburgh can’t afford to lose, in my opinion,” he wrote. “To me, it’s places like Lydiah’s that make cities worth living in. ATM machines are a dime a dozen.”
I had walked past Lydiah’s time and again on the way to planning, historic review and zoning board meetings when it was a coffee shop. When Lydiah’s name went up on the window and she advertised curries, I thought I needed to try it one day, but the timing was never right. I know. Facepalm. With time of the essence now, I stopped in several days ago to get a taste in case her next location puts her out of my reach.
She acknowledges the space is barely sufficient, but in it she has fulfilled her dream of owning a restaurant. She grew up in the restaurant her parents owned in Nyeri Town, Kenya, and was nurtured on the savory warmth of a kitchen community.
“When I am around people and cooking, that’s my high,” she said. “So this has been a healing time for me.”
Now she hopes to find a larger place where she can really pull out the stops. After having the vegetable curry with rice, I hope it’s somewhere near where I live or work.
“I’m going to miss this place,” she said, “I cried when my landlord told me. He’s a good landlord and he gave me a chance to be here, but it is bittersweet because of the relationships I’ve built over five years.
“I’d love to stay Downtown because I wouldn’t have to start over” building a clientele, “but I would go anywhere there is diversity.”
Ms.Wanyoike came to Pittsburgh in 1998 with her 2year-old son to visit her brotherand decided to stay. For11 years, she was a community living specialist for Main stay Life Services, a nonprofit organization that houses and supports people with developmental disabilities. One of her jobs was to prepare meals for the Children’ s Institute through a contract it had with Mainstay.
She loved to cook, but what she really hankered to do was to cook Kenyan food and make it better known to Pittsburghers. She wondered whether she could pull off running a restaurant, but a friend who knew of her passion to try noticed an opportunity when the coffee shop at Grant and the Boulevard was closing.
She inquired and used her tax refund to get in. She started by selling coffee.
“I went to Salem’s [Market and Grill] in the Strip one day and they said, ‘You need to sell more than coffee. You’re from Kenya! You need to sell goat!’”
Itwas the prompt that set herin motion. The business shehas built — making the mostof a very small space, fashioninga kitchen out of necessityand creating a fan base —has given her momentum.
The son she brought here on that visit in 1998 is now preparing to join the U.S. Air Force. She also now has a 10year-old daughter and another son who is 2.
“I have learned so much from being here,” she said, “that it can only grow from what I have now.”
One of the nice things to know about this world is that for every person out there who has a dream but fails to take a chance, there is another who has a dream and the passion and confidence to carry it forward.
Ms. Wanyoike promised to let me know where she ends up. I promised myself never to walk past a place with a hankering to “someday” stop in.