36-year-old business owner and bartender Junior Lewis, a former winner of he Taste of the Caribbean competition, recently realised his dream of opening his very own rum bar on booming Abbeydale Road.
The bar, called Rumkeg876, takes its name from the Jamaican term for a ‘big-bellied man who drinks a lot of rum’ – a rumkeg, combined with the area code for Jamaica – 876, and specialises in Caribbean-sytle cocktails, with an uncomplicated menu that features a rotating cast of rums for every occasion.
Connoisseur’s will note a back bar that includes rums predominantly from the Caribbean and South America, with the likes of El Dorado, Appleton Estate and Worthy Park taking pride of place on the shelves, but you don’t need to be a rum expert to enjoy what Rumkeg876 has to offer with plenty of the party staple Wray Nephews and unique Bob Marley shots on hand to get you in the party mood.
Since opening in March, the bar has steadily gone from strength to strength. Success which Junior unconventionally measures in the amount of rum punch he’s making each week (it’s gone up from 5 litres to 20 litres!), and Junior took time out of his hectic schedule to talk to Exposed about the venture and what brought him from his hometown of Portland, Jamaica to (not-so) sunny Sheffield.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to have my own bar and I wanted to create a similar vibe to what you would get in a rum bar in Jamaica, but more contemporary,” says Junior, “In Jamaica, there’s a bar on every corner – it’s got the most bars and the most churches in the world for its size!
“I get homesick, but Sheffield is my home now, so I wanted to create a vibe that makes me feel at home at home, if you get what I mean? I want to feel like Jamaica is running through the place.”
Growing up in Jamaica, Junior was brought up around rum and tells us it’s in his blood! “I love rum! I grew up on rum,” says Junior, “If I got poorly, my grandma used to rub me up with Wray Nephews. You feel better the next day. Rum is in me. It’s not something I’ve learned about in a textbook.”
“I fell into bartending in Jamaica. It was just something to do. Me and my cousin went off to do a hospitality training course for six weeks and from that we did a month in a hotel, with no pay. I didn’t mind though, because I realised from the first week, I might like this!”
Through good manners instilled by his grandma and sheer persistence, Junior managed to get himself a job in the hotel where he carried that persistence through, eventually winning numerous awards for his bartending and often competing against the best from other islands in the region. The spoils of which (the trophies he liked, at least!) adorn the walls of the Abbeydale Road bar.
By this point, Juinor was travelling the country almost like a celebrity bartender, serving drinks at private parties across the island, before he took the seemingly left-field step to leave it all behind and move to Blighty.
“I just wanted to try something new. Everybody was like, don’t do it, don’t do it. So, I just did it. It took six months before I got a job. It was tough. Before I left Jamaica, I sold my car, I sold a lot of my stuff to put the funds together. It was crazy, but I’ll never regret it, and I’ve got two beautiful kids now.
“I eventually got a job holding up a sign saying ‘spaces here’ in a Sainsburys car park! It was during the winter of 2010. That was a shock to the system! I knew, obviously England is more of a cold country but that’s the first time I’ve ever got frostbite. They said it was one of the worst winters on record, so there I was in that car park, but I did it to the best of my ability. I didn’t know whether they were taking the piss, but after, they give me a certificate that says, ‘a tedious job, well done.”
From there, this gave Junior a foot in the door to work in security, before he moved into youth work, where he continues to work with children with challenging behaviour on his days off from the bar. However, he eventually found his way back into hospitality through chance while working security at a Premier Inn. One day they didn’t have enough staff, so Junior willingly jumped into the breach.
It’s been a long and topsy-turvy journey for Junior to get to where he could eventually realise his dream, and one that Junior is thankful has finally come to fruition.
He said: “I’m one of the fortunate Jamaicans. I’ve experienced not being good financially and being alright. A lot of it from my own hard work. I used to sell paintings when I was younger. One day I would like to go back to uni to do fine art.
“I didn’t grow up with my mum and dad. I grew up with my grandma. She was my mum and dad. Having a son was huge deal to me. My grandad, he used to work away in Canada for six months at a time, working on farms. The first time I tried an apple, like the ones you have here, was when he brought one home in his wellies. I’ll never forget those days. They are childhood memories that stick with you.
“Fingers crossed I’ll build this bar up. It’s working so far. I feel like I’ve created something bigger than I can imagine. It’s my first project on my own and when I look at the clientele, you can see people from all walks of life. You’ve got a black person, a white person, a mixed-race person, sitting together, having deep conversations, and they’re coming back. Some days I just sit back against the bar and think, this is wicked.”
If you haven’t check it out yet, Rumkeg876 is open on Abbeydale Road from Thursday to Sunday each week, serving up its unique Bob Marley shots and traditional rum punch as well as everything else you would expect on a bar (he won’t judge if you don’t have rum). Go check em out on socials here.
