Teen entrepreneur opening first New Jersey restaurant

EAST ORANGE, N.J. (PIX11) — Seventeen-year-old Ryan Kundan of East Orange is getting ready for the grand opening of his first restaurant, ‘Everything Nice with Spice’ on North Harrison Street in East Orange, NJ.

Kundan, a junior at Newark School of Fashion and Design, is opening the Caribbean restaurant Saturday with his mother, Shavana Kundan, who will be the main cook. The menu is infused with all the flavors of Shavana’s native Guayana.

“I’ve been cooking since I was 18 years old,” said Shavana Kundan.

“I see a lot of the same restaurants all over,” said Ryan Kundan. “I feel like it’s always a Jamaican restaurant or a Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood, but you don’t see a Guayanese restaurant.

The opening of ‘Everything Nice with Spice’ was made possible thanks to a business course Ryan completed at Essex County Community College, recommended by his high school principal.

Dr. Jamila Davis, a community advocate and entrepreneur, teaches the program, called ‘Boss Up.’

“It’s a 10-week teen entrepreneurship program,” explained Davis. “And it teaches the teens the fundamentals of business.”

Davis helped Ryan and Shavana navigate the process of opening a restaurant.

“It’s not easy opening up a business,” said Davis. “They have to get COs, they have to get permits. There were a lot of things they had to do. So I was instrumental in helping them get through some of those things.”

Davis said Ryan is one of her standout students, and believes his success will be an inspiration to others his age.

“It’s really going from a dream to a reality, and when they see that Ryan’s dreams came true, they’re gonna believe their dreams can come true, too.”