How Sijuola Folarin’s passion for Nigerian cooking—and a stranger’s act of kindness—saved her restaurant and renewed her hope
Like many chefs, Sijuola Folarin began cooking at a very young age.
“I started at five years old; I was always helping my mom,” she recalls, noting that many of the dishes she still prepares today stem from those early days of her childhood home in Nigeria.
While cooking had always been her passion, it wasn’t until many years later when she immigrated to Canada that she considered pursuing it as a full-time endeavor.
After hosting a party where she was unimpressed with the catering experience, a friend convinced her she could do much better herself. Shortly after, she decided to leave her career in social work and begin her own culinary journey; working out of her home kitchen and renting out commercial space for larger orders for over a decade before committing to an actual brick and mortar location.
“You know, people have tried to open Nigerian restaurants here but they actually closed down, so I was afraid of the unknown,” she shares. “When I started I thought, ‘I need to build my clientele before I go out on my own.’”
In 2020, with help from the Downtown Accelerator and food-based incubator Cook-Up, Folarin begin selling her food at the Downtown Windsor Farmers Market.
“Cook-Up and I really started together,” she smiles. “I was one of their first clients and I can’t tell my story without telling theirs. They really helped me out so much and I wouldn’t be here without them.”
Now, nearly 20 years since moving to Windsor, Folarin is the owner of Naija Food Eats, a cozy eatery located at 914 Erie St. East specializing in authentic African cuisine including jollof rice, suya, roasted chicken, stews, and more.
Folarin says while she has gained many regular customers over the past three years in the space, she’s always excited to see new faces come through the door, eager to sample her Nigerian comfort food.
“I have people from every culture come in especially for the egusi,” she says. The popular dish is a nutty, spicy and rich stew prepared with ground pumpkin seeds and spinach, served with fufu for dipping.
While Folarin’s passion for cooking remains strong, she admits entrepreneurship is extremely challenging, especially as a single mother.
Over the past several months, Folarin began running the business each day by herself while also taking on part-time gig work to make ends meet. She closes the restaurant daily between lunch and dinner service to pick up her three children, leaving them to run dinner service while she moonlights as an Uber driver. Struggling to pay her bills and grappling with depression, Folarin had recently decided she had no choice but to put her restaurant up for rent.
When local philanthropist Zachery Dereniowski of MDMotivator heard of her plight, he decided to share her story with his online community.
Posing as a struggling student with only $10 to spend on food, Dereniowski visited Naija Food Eats looking for a small plate of rice, only to have Folarin bring him out a full meal free of charge. When she refuses to let him pay, Dereniowski gifted her with $1000 cash.
“It was really a Godsend,” says Folarin. “Someone in the community must have told him and it just came at the time when it was so needed. It was so incredible and very emotional.”
Dereniowski says it wasn’t just her struggle, but Folarin’s kind heart that compelled him to rally his thirty-million social media followers to raise an additional $50,000 for her and provide her with a new car and much needed kitchen repairs by local construction company Four Leaf Renovations.
“A few people shared to me what was going on with her restaurant and how she’s always great to the people in the community,” says Dereniowski. “When I came to the restaurant, she didn’t hesitate to go back to the kitchen and whip me up a full meal.”
“More importantly, she shared a bit about her mental health journey and what she was going through,” he adds. “Despite all of that, she was still smiling ear to ear when she greeted me. It sounds cliché, but the biggest takeaway is really that you never know what someone is going through. They could be carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, but you’d never know.”
That’s why it’s so important to lead with kindness, says Dereniowski.
“It can literally make or break someone’s day, week, month, or potentially their life.”
Dereniowski adds that the internet is social proof that people truly want to do good.
“Whether it’s for individuals, mom and pop restaurants, families all across North America and beyond, we’ve crowd-funded all throughout the world. It’s been really amazing to see that people always support people,” he says. “It’s almost like an infinite supply of love.”
Folarin says although she still has many sleepless nights and struggles ahead, she is grateful for the support and thankful for the gifts that will allow her to continue to feed the community and her own family.
“I’m still giving thanks to God,” she says. “It’s all I can do.”
