Los Angeles houses the nation’s biggest Little Belize

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The first Belizean restaurant on the block started 28 years ago in Nel and John Wells’ home, and now a half dozen Belizean restaurants have sprung up to join it in the country’s biggest Little Belize: Nel and John’s Belizean at 3567 S Western Ave, Los Angeles.

John has passed away, but Nel still does the cooking, and their daughter Dorothy manages the restaurant. Dorothy’s children do their homework at the counter just as she did when she was a little girl, and every Sunday the restaurant is closed for church services, held right there, after which they will feed the crowd.

Nel says it is more than just the immigrant experience that keeps their community so tight-knit; she says it is something that comes specifically from back home in Belize. Life was hard there, she says, and her mother would feed the even-poorer neighbors.

When the children complained that she was giving away their food, she would tell them, “Cast your bread upon the waters.”