The opening of Kuya Jay’s Ube Kafe’s new Somerville location last month drew crowds eager to try their Filipino food, desserts and vibrant purple lattes — colored by ube, a purple yam native to the Philippines.
The cafe’s owners, Sarai and Jay Ricciardi, said the response from Gilman Square residents was “phenomenal.”
“They said they’ve been dying for us to open, not only to have Filipino food but also to have a cafe, because there’s not a cafe within walking distance,” Sarai Ricciardi said.
But when the Ricciardis returned for their third day of business, officials from the Somerville Inspectional Services Department came into the store to inform them of a licensing complication — triggering an onslaught of bureaucratic hurdles and community outrage.
The shop has been indefinitely closed since Monday, with a notice posted on its door. At issue is a dispute with the city over licensing, leading to allegations of unsanctioned sandwich sales from the city and inadherence to due process from the owners. Residents have gotten involved — with a photo of the closure prompting hundreds of comments and hundreds of thousands of views on social media.
“Omg!!!! I wanted to take my daughter there for the first time for her birthday this weekend because she requested Filipino food!!! 😭😭😭,” one person said. “Huhhhhh what is an illegal sandwich?🤔🙄thats wild!” said another.
Somerville officials said the cafe owners moved into the location without proper permitting. The retail space is licensed by Gerly Adrien, owner of Gerly’s Ice Cream, who had offered the couple the location from September to April, when she planned to close down her business.
“Kuya Jay’s Ube Café mistakenly thought that they could utilize Gerly’s food license to operate without any revisions or additional review, which they cannot,” a Somerville spokesperson wrote in a Tuesday statement to GBH News.
Adrien could not be reached for comment. But the Ricciardis said that at a late November meeting with Adrien and the city, they agreed that Kuya Jay’s could move forward if they operated in the same floor plan and under the same food license as the ice cream shop. The cafe had initially served savory Filipino food, such as traditional noodle dishes and meat-filled empanadas, but slimmed down the menu to offer only coffee, sweets and ice cream.
The Ricciardis — believing they had been cleared by the city — reopened on the day after Thanksgiving, greeted by enthusiastic customers.
But by Tuesday, the co-owners took to Instagram to say they had been shut down again.
“This time they said we served an illegal sandwich,” the caption read, drawing confusion from dozens of commenters. The post had nearly 600,000 views as of Wednesday evening, according to a screenshot reviewed by GBH News.
On Tuesday, the Ricciardis learned that the sandwich in question was an ube sweet roll, one of their menu offerings that the city had previously approved. City officials acknowledged the error in a Tuesday Zoom call with Adrien, but said the cafe still needs to remain shuttered to address other pending licensing matters, including unauthorized construction and changes in floor plans.
“There have been repeated changes on whether Gerly’s was utilizing old operations and equipment or pursuing a change in operations, or whether Ube Kafe was pursuing opening as its own establishment,” a city spokesperson wrote in a Wednesday statement to GBH News. The spokesperson declined to comment on the sandwich mix-up.
The Ricciardis maintain that they have done nothing wrong, and the obstacles have made them feel unwelcome. They are still determining their next steps, adding that they’ve received no guidance in how to fix the situation.
“We’re just kind of sitting here like, well, Somerville just doesn’t want us to be there,” Sarai Ricciardi said. “What do we need to do to open these doors?”
Christine Carlino, a board member of the Gilman Square Neighborhood Council, said the process of opening a small business in the area is unreasonably difficult. She said in the last five years, two other bakeries — Rae the Baker and Kero + Homemade Brazilian Bites — have tried to open in Gilman Square but never made it through the “heavy, heavy” zoning and licensing procedures.
“As the neighborhood council, we reached out to the owners to find out like, ‘Hey, how can we help support you?’ they’re like, ‘You can’t. The process takes too long, and we ran out of money,” Carlino said.
Jay Ricciardi said the cafe’s mission is to promote Filipino culture, but now he worries about reputational damage from the closure.
“Issuing notice from the board of health — people think maybe it’s unsafe, or it’s unsanitary, when we’ve never ever had those types of accusations from any of our customers,” he said.
“We may or may not be in Somerville, but we’re not going anywhere,” Sarai Ricciardi said. “We’re in it for this community.”
