December 1, 2025

Meet Fay

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After two strokes, she sold her restaurant. Season of Sharing Fund helped pay rent when she got sick

For the last two decades, since she closed her Berkeley restaurant Caribbean Spice, Fay Hintzen has watched her body break down “bit by bit.” As she aged, her disability payments covered a modest one-bedroom apartment.

In 2024, Hintzen’s doctor advised that she upgrade to a two-bedroom place to accommodate a live-in caretaker, and that she seek a unit on the ground floor. On more than one occasion, Hintzen had been stranded by a broken elevator in her San Jose apartment and was forced to cancel a doctor’s appointment at the last minute because she couldn’t get down the stairs.

But she didn’t get to enjoy the new place for long. She was still unpacking boxes when she tore her rotator cuff. The surgery that followed left her with an infection that put her in and out of the hospital for six months. Bills began to pile up.

That’s when her caretaker, Teralyn Carter, encouraged her to apply for help from the Season of Sharing Fund. The grant helped cover her rent during her long hospital stays, keeping her housed and stable while she recovered.

“It’s a great relief,” Fay said. “I don’t know how I would have done it without that help.”

The Season of Sharing Fund works year-round to prevent homelessness and hunger in the nine-county Bay Area. All donations go directly to help people in need.

Hintzen hasn’t had to return to the hospital since February, allowing her plenty of time for crafting and catching up with friends. She’s grateful for a period of good health — they’ve become rare since the early 2000s, when running Caribbean Spice pushed her body past its limits.

Though the hours were long, Hintzen loved it. On Friday nights, she hired steel drum bands to fill the space with music and dancing. On Sunday nights, after finishing the last service and closing up the restaurant for the weekend, she would drive to Los Angeles to buy ingredients she couldn’t find in the Bay Area. Then, she would turn around and head back up Highway 5 so she could reopen the restaurant Tuesday morning.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was abusing my body,” Hintzen said.

Eventually, the relentless pace caught up with her. In 2000, she suffered a stroke. Rehab took months, but as soon as she could, she returned to the restaurant, balancing on a cane in the kitchen.

Less than a year later, another stroke landed her in a nursing home. Her doctor told her she needed to face reality: running the restaurant had become a health risk. Left with no other choice, Hintzen sold Caribbean Spice and settled into a slower rhythm.

“It was very hard for me to deal with at the time,” Hintzen said. “I avoided going into depression fully only because of my faith.”

Hintzen began relying on disability payments to meet her monthly needs and a Section 8 housing voucher to make rent.

With time, she rediscovered life beyond the restaurant — as ever, using food to connect with her community.

Hintzen’s next-door neighbor, Nita Martinez, recalls fondly how Hintzen would invite her children over for backyard barbecues in the summer, or for a hot chocolate on winter nights after school. Hintzen even hosted a party for Martinez’s son when he graduated from high school.

“Fay has a lot of extended family through her neighbors,” Martinez said.

Occasionally, Hintzen still cooks her “sexy chicken” — a sweet and sour sauce mixed with a blend of spices. But these days, she devotes most of her creative energies to crafting. The walls of her apartment are filled with her paintings and art.

“It was very hard for me to deal with at the time,” Fay said.

Hintzen rarely finds herself alone at home, despite her limited mobility. A group of churchgoers gathers at her home on Wednesdays for a Bible study. Friends also stop by regularly to check in on her, as Hintzen did for them in the past.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Hintzen was working on a piece of “diamond art,” pasting sparkling beads onto a canvas one by one, when Martinez, her old neighbor, stopped by. While Hintzen worked on her canvas from the couch, Martinez chatted with her from across the kitchen table. “I’ll let Fay handle the diamond art — I’m no good,” Martinez said.

Reach Kate Talerico: https://www.sfchronicle.com/author/kate-talerico/

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