Germène’s Home Kitchen & Bakery offers Haitian cuisine in Fayetteville

On Jul 7, 2026

Updated July 7, 2026, 9:13 a.m. ET

Army veteran Eddy Claude opened Germène’s Home Kitchen & Bakery in Fayetteville.
The restaurant serves traditional Haitian food, paying homage to Claude’s birthplace.
Claude started cooking as a way to cope with PTSD and connect with his family.

After immigrating to Massachusetts from Haiti in 2002, Eddy Claude served in the Army for nearly 21 years, the majority of it at Fort Bragg beginning in 2005. Through it all, he’s remained steadfast in his ultimate goal: to extend his passion for the culinary arts with the community.

What began as a way to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder and connect more deeply with his family culminated in the June 27 opening of Germène’s Home Kitchen & Bakery, at 1205 Robeson St.

“I spent a couple of years in Texas alone while my family was still (in Fayetteville),” Claude said of a nearly two-year Army assignment. “During that time, when I got lonely, I would just put on the music and start preparing different kinds of dishes.”

With the name inspired by his late grandmother, who he said was known for her generosity, Claude planted the seeds for Germène’s in January 2024, intending to run the kitchen directly out of his home. But he soon learned that many of the Haitian dishes he wanted to serve couldn’t legally be prepared for sale in a home kitchen.

So two years later, with the help of commercial kitchen equipment he borrowed from the North Carolina Small Business Foundation, Claude finally opened the doors on his dream.

The dishes at Germène’s pay homage to Haiti’s north-central Artibonite region, where Claude was born. His favorite dish on the menu is lalo, a traditional Haitian stew made with Jute leaves. The vitamin- and mineral-rich leaves offer a slightly slippery texture for a stew that meshes well with the rice it is served alongside.

Germène’s menu offers breakfast, lunch and dinner, with fish playing a starring role in many of the dishes, such as seafood spaghetti and seafood macaroni and cheese. An early favorite among Germène’s newfound customers is griot, a traditional Haitian fried pork dish.

Claude said that it was during the week of his soft opening, June 22-25, when he realized how much Fayetteville needed a permanent Haitian restaurant. He said that a diverse mix of customers came in to see what he had to offer, and many left vowing to come back.

Monique Michel is part Haitian and has lived in Fayetteville for six years. She was one of the first customers at Germène’s during its soft opening. She said that the atmosphere made her feel at home with her family. The city’s strong military presence, she added, gives budding restaurateurs the opportunity to introduce a wider variety of international cuisines.

“There’s a lot of overlap between different Caribbean countries, but each country contributes their own type of spin on the food and different cultural atmospheres,” she said. “Because there were no Haitian restaurants, that complete population and representation was missing, and now it’s here.” Family CFGEL Fritay Lakay used to be Fayetteville’s only brick-and-mortar Haitian restaurant at 821 Person St., but it closed permanently in 2025. Bethel Haitian Cuisine was a food truck in the area that opened in 2023, but has since permanently closed.

Claude emphasized that he wants every customer to feel welcomed and encouraged to try something new. He said his time in the Army — first as a petroleum supply specialist and then as a psychological operations specialist — taught him to never stop trying new foods and learning about different cultures.

“Food connects the world together,” Claude said. “If I could travel the world and try all kinds of food, that’s what I would do.”

For the moment, Germène’s serves as a reflection of a landscape for Haitian entrepreneurs in the U.S. that has allowed ample room for growth and creativity.

But Germène’s is more than a new restaurant. For Claude, it’s the culmination of a journey that began in Haiti and was shaped by immigration policies that have affected thousands of Haitian families across the U.S.

Under a January 2023 program that was recently discontinued, up to a total of 30,000 people each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela could be granted permission to live and work in the U.S. Claude served as the sponsor for seven of his family members who took part in the program. Those same family members help him with the restaurant.

Don Noel, Claude’s friend and fellow veteran, who is also Haitian, said he thinks that the new restaurant will allow Fayetteville’s Haitian community to flourish. He said everyone in his circle has been “thirsty” for a permanent marker of Haitian culture and cuisine. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey five-year estimates, an estimated 1,291 Cumberland County residents reported Haitian ancestry, representing approximately 0.38% of the county’s population.

Noel, who came to Fort Bragg in 1999 and met Claude there in 2005, has been a part of the restaurant in a support role since its very beginnings. He is a certified carpenter and played a significant role in the renovations of the space. He and Claude are so close, Noel said, that some people might think they’re blood brothers.

“Knowing Eddy for so long, when he sets his mind to do something, he wants to do it right,” Noel said. “He wants to actually stand out. Whatever he’s doing, he goes above and beyond.”

Claude said his goal is to provide a level of service and atmosphere that feels like home to Haitian Americans and encourages all others to try new things.

“We don’t just want to feed people — we want people to feel cared for,” Claude said in his prepared remarks for the grand opening. “That’s what my grandmother taught me, and that’s the legacy we hope to continue every single day.”

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