For more than a decade, Sarah Kirnon presided over one of the Bay Area’s most widely celebrated restaurants. Until it closed in 2022, Miss Ollie’s, Kirnon’s Afro-Caribbean spot in Old Oakland, served up some of the tastiest braised oxtails, Bajan pepper sauce and skillet-fried chicken in the Bay. The restaurant also served as an important gathering place for Oakland’s Black, brown and queer communities.
And now, Kirnon is going home.
“I’m focused on going back to my roots to Barbados next year,” she tells KQED, explaining that she’s decided to move back to her home village on the island…