a joint · NYPeppa's Jerk Chicken

A Jamaican takeout counter on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn's Little Caribbean, run by Gavin Hussey, whose jerk chicken is dry-rubbed, washed with vinegar and charred black before it is hacked apart to order. It stays open to six in the morning. A house scotch-bonnet jerk sauce goes over the top on request.

Hussey was born in St. Andrew Parish, Jamaica, third of twelve children, and learned to cook helping his mother feed the younger ones. The nickname Peppa goes back to school and, Black-Owned Brooklyn notes, has nothing to do with chiles.

In 1995 he co-founded a Flatbush Avenue counter called Danny & Pepper's, selling mostly jerk chicken. Ten years later he opened his own room on the same avenue. The Historic Districts Council, naming Peppa's to its Six to Celebrate list, says "his unique style of jerking made the restaurant a neighborhood favorite" and describes it as a staple of Little Caribbean. Two more Brooklyn rooms followed — Crown Heights run by his daughter, East Flatbush by his sister.

Hussey on the work, quoted by Black-Owned Brooklyn: "You can't cook just to sell some food. You have to put the passion in it to get it right — and that's who I am."

Note — this is a wing catalogue and jerk wings are a national item, but no menu this project could read lists wings at Peppa's. The record is here for the jerk method that the jerk wing descends from, not for a wing order.

A dry rub and a vinegar wash, then fire until the outside goes black, then the chicken is hacked up with a cleaver for serving. Scotch-bonnet jerk sauce over the top is separate. Time Out's phrase for the result is "the smokey, perfectly grilled smoked chicken that keeps us coming back."

Four rooms as of September 2026: the Flatbush Avenue original, Crown Heights at 791 Prospect Place, East Flatbush at 689 Utica Avenue, and one in Manhattan. Sources put the original at 730, 736 and 738 Flatbush Avenue — the same storefront, numbered differently by different listings.