Our Story

In 2016, Jolly Adeyemi set up a single frying pan on a corner in Yaba. She sold akara to students walking to lectures and traders opening their shops. She peeled the beans by hand because her mother taught her that skin left in the batter makes akara heavy.

Word travelled the way good food always does. People started calling ahead. Offices started asking for trays. By 2019 the corner had become a kitchen, and the kitchen had a queue that stretched past the gate.

Today Jolly Akara runs three kitchens across Lagos, but almost nothing about the method has changed. Beans are still peeled by hand. Batter is still blended fresh each morning and never held overnight. Nothing is fried until you order it, which is why we ask for a few minutes and why it arrives hot.

We think Nigerian street food deserves the same care, packaging and reliability people expect from anywhere else. That's the whole business.