Africana Store@tays Market

 This family-owned business is a cute little Ghanaian/West African shop. They've got hard-to-find West African groceries and essentials, as well as some home goods.

The shop offers everything from ethnic snacks such as Mister Ho Classic Plantain Chips and Chin Chin Dough Crunch to Soursop Juice and Malta Goya beverages to imported seasonings, powders and oils, and Ukazi, Uziza and Uda leaves. They also offer yams, yucca, all the fixings to make things like egusi soup, and items such as goat meat, periwinkle, turkey tails, pig feet, cow feet, kenkey, blackeye peas, cassava dough and okra.

Seafood offerings include smoked and frozen red snapper, tilapia, catfish, cod and croaker fish.

There’s also items such as Calaba chalk, which Amara said is good for one’s health as it coats a layer onto one’s stomach.

About 95% of the clientele that comes through the doors doesn’t speak English, she said, adding that many of the customers are Haitian, Jamaican, Dominican or African.