Our story

Two kitchens.
One table.

Kola & Cane began as a friendly argument between a Nigerian cook and a Jamaican baker over whose rice was better. They never settled it. They opened a restaurant instead.

The kola nut is how West Africa says welcome. Sugarcane is what the Caribbean was built on, and what it learned to turn into something sweet. We named the place after both, because that is what we cook: hospitality, history, and a generous amount of pepper.

Adaeze & Marcia, founders

Who we are

A Lagos pot and a Mandeville oven

Adaeze grew up in Lagos cooking beside her mother, learning that jollof is judged by its smoke and egusi by how long you let it rest. Marcia grew up in Mandeville, Jamaica, in her grandmother’s bakery, where the oven never fully cooled.

They met in Lancaster at neighboring folding tables at a Saturday food market, Adaeze selling suya and Marcia selling rum cake, and spent a summer trading plates, recipes and opinions. By fall they were cooking pop-up suppers in a borrowed church kitchen. By spring they had keys to a narrow room on Orange Street.

The menu still tastes like those Saturdays: West African stews and street food next to Caribbean grills and bakes, made from scratch, with nothing on the plate they wouldn’t serve their own families.

Dishes on the menu

6 hrs

Oxtail braise

Grandmothers’ recipe books

Microwaves in the kitchen

A cook spooning sauce over jerk chicken and plantains at the kitchen pass

Lancaster Pennsylvania

What we stand on

Our values

Scratch, always

Pepper sauces, spice rubs, ginger beer and rum cake are made in this kitchen. If we can make it ourselves, we don’t buy it.

Room for everyone

Regulars from the diaspora, first-timers who have never met fufu, kids who want plantains and nothing else. There’s a seat and a spice level for all of you.