A Night at Cafe Wha? with Head Chef “JP”

“LET’S FEED NEW YORK CITY!!!” the head chef at the Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village shouts. Jean Pierre Evanson’s calls echo in the 200-square foot kitchen. Plates clatter and servers mutter and shout mostly in Spanish, you could cut the tension with a spoon from the serving drawer. Outside the kitchen in the performance and dining area of the Greenwich Village landmark, the musicians warm up. The music pounds and bounces off the metal walls of the tiny kitchen.

I work the bar, which is located in the kitchen and watch as Evanson, whom we call JP, and the servers get ready. On most nights, we know that a line of customers has formed at the corner of Minnetta and McDougal. After all, this is an entertainment landmark in Greenwich Village.

JP is a bit of a hero to me. Every night I watch him fend off the wolfish line of eager servers clambering for their tables’ orders. “NO KIDS IN THE KITCHEN,” he exclaims to scare off the would-be interloper server who would inevitably disrupt the flow of precisely placed papers. These are tickets that are sent by servers with customer orders to an android-like device.

Once a ticket is printed directly in front of JP or me, I make the drinks while JP throws burgers on the grill and plunges French fries into the 325-degree oil. “The servers are nice sometimes, but I have my favorites,” JP said, “Those favorite servers are nice all the time not only to me but to guests at Café Wha? as well all the time,”

Plates slam down on the counter as burger after burger is plated. To the uninitiate, it can seem like a hurricane of food, confidence and flair.

When JP arrived with his father at the U.S. from Haiti, he was 13 years old. JP was taught English to prepare him. “Moving here was great. I’d already learned English back home for six months,” he said, “That was the thing back home, learn English so you don’t get stuck when you arrive.”

He said Haiti was getting violent in 2001 and he remembers his feelings when he left clearly.  “It was the best feeling in my life. Still is. I remember me alone in the plane, the biggest thing I’ve ever gotten in at that age.  My mother had walked me through the airplane door,” he said, reminiscing, “The whole time she was telling me not to let friends, drugs, women ruin my head.  She counted on me. I’m all her hopes to get out the life we was living back home.”

Because of the political turmoil and violence in Haiti, Haitian immigrants, along with about 863,000 immigrants from 17 countries, have Temporary Protected Status (TPS). This allows them to live and work legally in the United States which President-Elect Trump has threatened to revoke. JP’s status could be in jeopardy.

In New York, JP’s first kitchen job was working at Blue 9 Burger. He started as a dishwasher, and was inspired to cook by the, then, french chef Larry Lauren. “Chef Larry Lauren told me he would teach me everything. He knows cooking techniques he learned in cooking school. He would teach me everything, if I’m willing to learn and I was sold.”

He began working at Cafe Wha? in 2022, “I was born to feed people, this is the purpose God gave me,” he chants as he plates 10 burgers, three quesadillas, four mozzarella sticks, and five orders of chicken tenders. No number of orders slows him down. Sometimes laughing he says, “They are coming for me, I love it.”

Cafe Wha? opened first as a coffee shop by Manny Roth, the uncle of musician David Lee Roth of Van Halen, in 1959. It has an impressive resume of people who have gotten their start at the cafe. Richard Pryor, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix are among the greats who have stumbled down the stairs to the basement venue. But the greats and others pay little attention to the impressive and diverse staff in the kitchen.

The job feels like a calling to him. “I’ve gained the opportunity to continue to express myself through my cooking,” he said after one long night in the tiny kitchen, adding that loves the diversity of the ever-changing wait and kitchen staff. “It’s always fun for me to work with other cultures and it makes me a better person.”

He appreciates how hard the job is and thinks it has made him stronger. It’s given him something special, “the confidence in knowing I can keep a job for as long as I’ve been there, as well as the necessary experience needed to run my own place some day in the near future.”