Inside Lume Bistro & Lounge: Krystal Powell on Family, Food and Community

Krystal Powell’s Lume Bistro & Lounge in Pembroke Pines Florida, is a Jamaican restaurant with multi-cultural offerings. She tell World Music Views that she is building an ecosystem of experience, identity based on being the “light.”

“So Lume is a restaurant and lounge and I just wanted to create an atmosphere where good food, good music and vibes combined together and just bringing people together,” she says. “Authentic Jamaican food with a twist… bringing different cultures together and just making it a place where everyone’s happy.”

Powell fuses Jamaican culinary traditions with Italian and broader international elements, producing a menu that mirrors the multicultural fabric of South Florida. It is not just fusion, it is how she widens the table rather than redefine it.

Her entrepreneurial journey, however, began far from the polished interiors of Lume. “I started from home… just being around my parents, entertaining and cooking from as a young child,” she says. That early immersion evolved into a catering business, then into a network of food trucks—mobile operations that remain active today across Miami’s apartment complexes, dealerships and community spaces.

This incremental growth reflects a pattern familiar in resilient hospitality ventures: start lean, test demand, scale cautiously. Powell’s previous attempt at a brick-and-mortar Caribbean restaurant did not succeed. Yet rather than retreat, she recalibrated. “It didn’t work out, so we sold my shares and we created Lume based off of that experience,” she says.

Lume’s energetic feel is marked by long queues and a steady churn of repeat customers—that is by design. Powell, her husband Sean and his business partner Kellz McDonald has embedded a service philosophy more akin to boutique hospitality than transactional dining. “We try to just create a loving place… everyone’s family there,” she says. “When you walk through that door, the next time they see your face, they know exactly what you’re going to order.”

Daily motivation, she notes, is part of the staff culture to maintain consistency. “Just motivating the staff daily, letting them know what we’re all about,” she says.

Lume Staff

The name itself carries symbolic weight. “Lume is Latin for light… we want to be the source of light for the community,” she says. The metaphor extends beyond branding into operations—light as nourishment, as growth, as connection.

Diners encounter a spectrum that ranges from oxtail pasta and rasta pasta to lamb chops, seafood soups and fried chicken, alongside rotating specials. “When I tell you, you think of it, we have it,” she says. Fridays introduce yet another layer: Jamaican-Chinese crossover dishes, including sweet and sour chicken and fried rice. “It’s a multicultural Jamaican experience,” she says.

Beyond commercial success through her initiative, Dynamic Cuisine, Krystal has embedded a philanthropic model into her operations—addressing food waste while feeding underserved communities. “There’s so much food waste in the industry… and it hurts my soul,” she says. Every two weeks, Powell and her team take to the streets with their food truck. “When I say we feeding them, we feeding them… oxtail, rice and peas, jerk chicken.”

Lume Bistro & Lounge

It is restaurant-quality meals rather than surplus scraps that offers dignity to the homeless. “It’s just to give back and just to see the smile on their faces… it’s just a good feeling overall,” she says. “I know food can bring people together and bring happiness.”

Lume itself remains a family business and the future appears less about rapid expansion and more about deepening impact—both culturally and socially. Her story is one of iteration rather than overnight success, shaped as much by setbacks as by ambition.

“We need light to survive… for growing food, for sourcing of everything,” Powell says. “So we are the light—Lume.”