Sally Roots is Bushwick’s New Caribbean Queen
“How about a shot? Our signature pour is all the rums!”
It seems that this is a standard greeting at the recently opened Sally Roots in Bushwick—along with bear hugs, as both staff and patrons appear to be longstanding friends. Although for newbies like us, outsider status is nothing that “all the rums” can’t quickly eliminate, closely followed by a communal round of grapefruit soda and quintuple spirit-spiked Everyting’s.
It all works to buoy a breezy, boozy joie de vivre that well befits a Caribbean bar and restaurant—especially one from the co-owners of Featherweight and Sweet Science, practiced at injecting jolts of congenial, cocktail-fueled hospitality into sleepier subdivisions of Brooklyn. And they both appear to exude extra enthusiasm over this deeply personal project: St. Croix-born James Freeman was inspired by his grandmother’s Calypso record collection (from the Panamanian label, Sally Ruth, which he transmuted, in his best island accent, to Roots), while John De Piper’s forebears boast a deliciously venal history as rumrunners.
195 Wyckoff Ave., Bushwick
Photos by Maggie Shannon