(Caribbean music) - [Dara] Walking quickly with a bag full of freshly prepared Jamaican food, Carlos Abrahams heads to the window to service customers.

- Is there anyone here to pick up a Caribbean?

- [Dara] Before the boxes stuffed with food make it to the window, there's a detailed process happening in the kitchen.

Like cracking eggs into a sizzling wok of peppers, chopping cilantro, and cooking shrimp with extra heat.

- It's fun.

I'm always looking forward to what the customer's reaction is gonna be.

- [Host] Abrahams opened the doors of his restaurant, Crav'n Caribbean in 2021, but the journey getting there started at his home the year before.

- I would prep until midnight, get back up at like three in the morning, leave the house by maybe like seven o'clock, and I would drive around to different businesses and sell plates.

And then it kind of just kept on taking off from there until I had enough people to where they were like, "Man, you need a location."

- [Host] He tells me this decision required a leap of faith because it was vastly different from his previous careers as a US Marine and car salesman.

However, he couldn't ignore his passion for cooking.

In fact, it was something he'd been doing since he was a child in Kingston, Jamaica.

- I grew up watching my mom cook.

She actually had a restaurant in Jamaica at the time, so just watching her always out of me and my brothers, I was one of the ones that was always cooking.

- [Host] Abraham says, growing up in Jamaica, most of their food was homegrown.

His family had fruit trees in their backyard and hardly ate out at restaurants because they lived off the land.

So in the early 2000s when they moved to the US and settled in a Delaware neighborhood, it was quite the adjustment.

- It was also just finding what was most cost beneficial at the time because we just didn't really have much.

So she just made things work.

And we've also learned a lot of like not making things go to waste.

So my mom would remix a lot of meals.

- [Host] Little did Abrahams know at the time, but that same concept of remixing food will be something he'd do in his own restaurant one day with fusion dishes.

- Fusion is basically taking two different cultures and merging it together.

So if you have someone that's Mexican and someone that's Jamaican, you can take something that's from both cultures and make it into one.

- [Host] Crav'n Caribbean has several fusion options, like its popular oxtail cheese steaks.

They even have a section on the menu called Jibachi, which is the mix of Jamaican and Hibachi food.

- It seems unorthodox, but if people actually know true Jamaican history, there's a huge Asian population.

So when we introduce like the oxtail fried rice, people thought like, "What is this?"

- And one of the things we make sure our customers get good portions, so they're getting their money's worth.

- [Host] Chef and restaurant manager, Alexander Keopraseuth says he and Abrahams didn't let the naysayers discourage them.

Instead, they found more creative ways to bring their cultures together and add to the menu.

- If the customers love it, which is the most important thing, we're gonna continue doing that and we're just having fun and loving it along the way.

- [Host] As they continue serving up food like sweet potato yams and mac and cheese, customers like Danielle Ellis tell us they'll continue coming back.

- You just feel like it's your grandma's back there putting her foot in that food.

You know every time you come it's never gonna be a fail.

- [Host] Ellis was born and raised in the Queen city and remembers a time when the food scene wasn't as diverse.

- Charlotte came a long way.

We didn't always have those options.

I'm for supporting the culture and supporting entrepreneurs.

So I love of course the Chick-fil-A and the McDonald's, but anytime that I have the time or I have the funds to spare, I do like to support entrepreneurs.

- [Host] For entrepreneurs like Abrahams, support from customers doesn't just impact him but his family too.

- It's fun getting to watch him cook the things that I would cook when I was a kid, especially for my mom.

And also getting him to learn the side of the business and seeing like physically like what your dad does every day for a living.

- I love making plates.

- [Host] And with the next generation in his bloodline falling in love with cooking, Abrahams is proud to know his spatula will be in good hands.

For "Carolina Impact", I'm Dara Khaalid.