Around five years ago, Junior Dacres, aka chef Sugar, started serving the Jamaican food he'd grown up eating to a small group of friends in his Aurora backyard on weekends. In 2020, when people were itching to socialize outside, word of his down-home food started to spread.
Soon, friends of friends — and eventually, strangers — were showing up for a taste of Sugar's Caribbean. “People come, they like the vibes in the backyard, the Jamaican vibes. Everyone come and they say, ‘I feel like I’m in Florida, I feel like I’m in Jamaica,'” Dacres recalls.
But as of April 7, he says, there's "no more Sugar."
For a while, this unofficial, unlicensed backyard cookout gained popularity via word of mouth. But in March, it seemed like every influencer in Denver began posting videos about the under-the-radar spot. Most began by showing a normal, residential home in Aurora's Delmar Parkway neighborhood, where diners were instructed to enter the backyard through a green, yellow and black side gate.
The TikTok account @outindenver (one of the few that has not deleted its Sugar’s video) has almost 23,000 followers. Its March 2 Sugar's post received nearly 2,000 views — and has recently amassed several dozen comments accusing the creator of exposing Dacres.
"Why would anybody ever post a video for the purpose of getting somebody shut down? If I had known the situation, I probably wouldn't have done that, you know?" says Julius, who runs @outindenver. He adds that he didn't talk with Dacres during his visit or before posting. "I'm always trying to support Black business...but other accounts did post about it and everybody's blaming me, and I'm like 'I don't know if I was the one who got him shut down.'"
His account was not the only one to share Sugar's, which even received a mention in an April Denver Post story, “8 must-try restaurants in Aurora," written by renowned soul food scholar Adrian Miller.
Running an unofficial restaurant in his backyard wasn’t in Dacres’s plans. “When it started, it was just guys coming by, coming to my place. I just invited people to my house since I got a nice yard, and they used to come to my place and play dominoes, play cards,” he explains. “Everyone threw in $5, $10, and we used that to run a boat.”
“Running a boat” is Jamaican vernacular for a group of friends, typically young men, gathering to cook food together. The preparation and cooking often take place in the backyard and involve grilling, portable gas stoves and fire pits. Boats are community gatherings, where young men also spend time ribbing and teasing the cooks about their skills (or lack thereof).
Dacres has the skills. He grew up in Jamaica helping his mother feed his eight siblings. “I was always on the fireside with her, learning to cook, watching her,” Dacres says. “She cooked the main course and I cooked the small dish on the side, which was like a sample before dinnertime. And everyone always sampled my dish.”
So it was only natural that he found his way to restaurants when he immigrated to America in 1990 as a 28-year-old. Today he works at Ted's Montana Grill as a jack-of-all-trades in front- and back-of-house positions, slinging bison burgers and clearing tables.
It was only during his weekend boats that he got to cook the traditional Jamaican recipes he learned from his mother, like oxtail, jerk chicken, curry chicken, fried snapper, beef patties and more. “I don’t read no book, don't look at no recipe. I just do my thing, and the people just love the way I do it,” Dacres says.
When more people started showing up to Dacres's weekend boat, he began tacking up a hand-scrawled menu on brown butcher paper and charging $2 to $3 for a plate. “My food, they don't need advertisement," he notes. "Mouth-to-mouth, once somebody eat it. And that’s the way it spreads: You tell your friends and everyone at your job."
But the influencer and media attention exposed Sugar's to more than just hungry food lovers.
Dacres, now 61 years old, isn't on social media; he doesn't even have an email address. He admits that he knew he was operating in a gray area, but the growth of Sugar’s from cookouts with friends to Aurora’s hottest new restaurant was just so sudden and unexpected. In many ways, he still saw the venture as a hobby — a side project to earn a few extra bucks.
He estimates that on an average weekend, he netted roughly $300 to $400. “My pleasure wasn’t for the money, it was to see the people happy. ... My food I was doing for the joy, for the love, and I knew the money would come with it,” Dacres says.
But Sugar's was operating without proper licensing. "We were informed by the Aurora Health Department of the operation and followed up regarding the city’s requirements," explains Trevor Vaughn, manager of licensing for the City of Aurora. Although the health department did not respond to a request for comment about what initially alerted officials to Sugar's, Dacres hypothesizes that it was the increased online attention.
"The business did not have a City of Aurora business license. Also, a restaurant is not permitted at that location, as it is in a single-family residence in an OA-R1 zone district," explains Vaughn "The business was issued a notice of violation by the city on April 7, 2023, for operating without a license and operating in an un-permitted zone."
So for now, there's no more Sugar. But while Dacres is down, he's not out. He's retiring from his job at Ted's Montana next month and wants to focus on cooking at a (legitimate) restaurant of his own.
His dream is to take over the lease of an existing restaurant in a good location. “I just like a nice spot, register my name, get some help in the paperwork and all of them good stuff,” Dacres says.
However, with no email address and low internet literacy, he’s facing challenges in navigating the complexities of opening his own restaurant. He’s open to any and all support he can get from his fans, the city and other businesses. But even without any help, Dacres is determined to make Sugar’s legit. “Right now I'm looking, finding somewhere to come back. Get my papers, get my name, and come back good,” he vows.