Front view of TiGeorges' Chicken restaurant in Echo Park

TiGeorges is busy coordinating with local Haitians and planning a relief drive at his Glendale Boulevard restaurant – TiGeorges’ Chicken – located Northwest of Downtown Los Angeles at 309 Glendale Boulevard.  Haitian Americans are frantically trying to get in touch with their families back home and the relief drive is way of connecting to share information.

“The country of Haiti is in Chaos and they truly need our help,” said Laguerre.

The world communities are now sending respective rescue teams to the island to assist the people of Haiti.

Neighboring Caribbean island Prime Minister of Jamaica Mr. Bruce Golding will lead a delegation, which will include the Leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller, to Haiti sometime today. The delegation will assess the nature of immediate assistance which can be rendered by Jamaica in conjunction with international partners following Jan. 12th devastating 7.0 earthquake.

In his remarks to the nation, U.S. President Barack Obama has directed his administration to respond with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives.  “The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States,” he said.

The U.S. President was quick to acknowledge that we are experiencing tough times here at home.  Still he encouraged those Americans who want to support the urgent humanitarian efforts to go to whitehouse.gov where they can learn how to contribute.

People here in the U.S. are feeling stunned, frustrated and helpless.  Friends of Haiti have responded with generosity and compassion.  Tigeorges is asking the local community to stop by the restaurant on Thursday at 5pm to show their support for Haiti.

Other local events includes – “Mother’s for Africa” a non-profit organization will be having a fundraiser for Haiti on Saturday, January 16th at 6pm at the Afiba Center located at 5730 Crenshaw Boulevard, Los Angeles.  Contact Micheline Robertson at (310) 903-3932 for information.

Haitian native and Los Angeles based actor Jimmy Jean-Louis is still uncertain the fate of his elderly parents in Haiti after receiving the news a powerful earthquake struck the nation. Jean-Louis learned that a house he had grown up in collapsed, killing several of his relatives.

Jimmy is the founder of Hollywood Unites for Haiti, a nonprofit organization whose original mission was to provide sports and cultural education to underprivileged youth on the island.

HUFH is currently focusing on providing support for victims of the earthquake and accepting donations of all kinds for this purpose. At the present time, HUFH is seeking two kinds of donations: financial and equipment. Please log on to www.hufh.com for further information on how to make your donation.

If you need any information about any other local Caribbean-American community relief effort or event in the Los Angeles area please call our CaribPress office at (323) 508-2626.

Tigeorges Chicken is located in Echo Park

Jean-Marie Monfort Hebert Georges Fils Laguerre is out to lend his considerable name to efforts to revive “Haitian Bleu,” a specialty coffee from the Caribbean island nation.

Laguerre is also putting his nickname — Tigeorges — behind the cause.

Both names have special meaning in this campaign, because Laguerre is a native of Haiti and also the owner of Tigeorges Chicken, which does a brisk business inside its modest quarters at 309 N. Glendale Boulevard in the Echo Park district northwest of Downtown.

The restaurant is one of several business lined up in row, occupying spaces in a workmanlike building that fronts the traffic zooming down Glendale Boulevard enroute to the Westlake district and Downtown. The interior is a different story — colorful, unique, aromatic. Then there’s Leguerre, who remains as passionate about cooking as the day his grandmother began to show him around the family kitchen in Haiti.

Tigeorges offers free coffee to curious tasters

Turns out that Laguerre is just as passionate about the organic coffee beans he brings from Haiti to roast, brew, and serve to customers at Tigeorges.

“When people come to the restaurant, I want them to feel at home,” says Laguerre. “I am actually taking Haiti from Haiti and bringing it to California. And I am the only Haitian for the last 40 years who has managed to hang on to a Haitian restaurant” in the area.

Customers have long come from all over the city and region to enjoy the rotisserie chicken and other specialties at Tigeorges. The Haitian Bleu Cafe Au Lait is just as popular lately. Laguerre whipped up a cup for a customer on a recent afternoon, insisting that she add sugar in order to bring out the flavor. He didn’t hesitate to tell her that Haitian Bleu is “the best coffee in the world.”

The young lady took a sip, smiled — and agreed.

Haiti’s Heroes of Independence is part of the display at Tigeorges Chicken

The tasty delight traces its roots to a country that has a tortured history in many respects, with nearly non-stop political tumult and foreign interference since slaves won their freedom by overthrowing Haiti’s colonial masters in 1803. The history also includes the development of a coffee industry, although that page has been blotted out of the minds of many by the most recent cycle of political and economic problems that have washed over the land in the past few decades.

“When I was a child in Haiti, there were three countries in the world known for the best coffee: Brazil, Columbia and Haiti,” Laguerre says, offering some insight on the potential he sees in Haitian Bleu as a comeback candidate.

He should know, too — his father was a coffee grower who also owned a coffee mill on the island. That background no doubt helps when Laguerre travels to Haiti and personally picks out the coffee from the local farmers, importing the stuff back to Los Angeles for roasting.

Colonial-style decoarations on the wall

The history of Haiti is inescapable for Laguerre, though. His restaurant prominently displays a Haitian flag alongside miniature models of French colonial style homes with symmetrical facades and cable roofs. The models rest amid colorful paintings of Haiti and its people.

The nation’s rugged journey through history plays a backhanded role in the coffee that Laguerre serves. French traders of yesteryear brought slaves to work on the plantations in Haiti and returned to Europe with their ships filled with valuable timber stripped from the country’s mountain slopes. Colonial landowners could often make more money on the timber and other crops grown for export — such as coffee — compared to food raised for local consumption.

So agricultural production for Haiti itself got short shrift, and the chronic food shortages remain part of the country’s living history. Many other downsides of colonial times remain in Haiti — but so does the coffee, offering at least a silver lining for the country’s difficult history.

Laguerre honors Hatian history, but he’s also fully engaged in the present. He takes great pride in his cuisine and his business, as well as his role as a prominent member of small-but-vibrant Haitian emigre community in the Los Angeles area, a group that numbers 3,000 or so.

“I started telling family and friends that I was going to open a restaurant in 1997,” Laguerre says “I built a rotisserie in my backyard and began preparing different foods and invited neighbors to sample the Haitian experience.”

Tigeorges Chicken became a reality in 2002, and folks have been getting information on Haiti served up with their Haitian food ever since.

Now Laguerre is committed to Haitian coffee, so just stand by.

Or sit down and have a cup while Laguerre gives you the background.

“Haiti was the guru of producing coffee, before Jamaica was crowned supreme,” he says. “Somehow Haiti ended up being on the back burner. I’m working to bring Haiti to the front burner.”

Sheannette Virtue is a writer for Carib Press.

Photos by Carib Press