Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

For 32 years the Ve­ran­dah Restau­rant has been serv­ing its cus­tomers with the finest in­ter­na­tion­al cui­sine in­fused with lo­cal and Caribbean flavours. Some fa­mous dish­es are beef-stuffed dumplings, shrimp skew­er with pep­per jel­ly glaze and the plan­tain and cheese stuffed chick­en breast. So tasty was the food that Phyl­lis Vieira's din­ers re­turned as of­ten as three times a week to ex­pe­ri­ence the var­ied week­ly menus. Cus­tomers of­ten de­scribed the cook­ing as "clean" in taste, nev­er too much of any­thing and just the right amount of every­thing.

Tea and desert lovers al­so en­joyed an ar­ray of Eng­lish-styled teas and ex­ot­ic desserts, par­tic­u­lar­ly its sig­na­ture cheese­cakes, which sat­is­fied every palette.

Now the fam­i­ly-owned lit­tle cosy restau­rant at 10 Rust Street, St Clair, is clos­ing its doors but def­i­nite­ly not its ser­vice. Co-own­er and Vieira's daugh­ter-in-law, Lisa Vieira, said it was mere­ly mov­ing from one ven­ture to the next.

"We are ex­pand­ing on our cater­ing ser­vice which has grown so much since we be­gan cater­ing in 2012.

We have a huge clien­tele in the cor­po­rate sec­tor. We do a num­ber of sem­i­nars and train­ing ses­sions, wed­dings etc. So this is not a good­bye rather just the in­tro­duc­tion of an­oth­er lay­er of the Ve­ran­dah brand."

She says the cater­ing ser­vice will al­so now of­fer ready-to-eat frozen foods.

"This is some­thing we are def­i­nite­ly em­bark­ing on. We are try­ing a dif­fer­ent ap­proach and this is re­al­ly for fam­i­lies. We know how hec­tic things can get be­tween jug­gling work, kids and still try­ing to main­tain your fam­i­ly life. That's why some­thing like a frozen casse­role, will get you an easy, quick and tasty din­ner."

Vieira al­so not­ed that tea would be catered to pri­vate func­tions.

They al­so plan on keep­ing up with the de­liv­ery ser­vice with a week­ly menu which will be e-mailed to all their cus­tomers. "What­ev­er they want will be de­liv­ered to them," says Vieira.

About Ve­ran­dah

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Ve­ran­dah start­ed out at the cor­ner of Mar­li and Wood­ford Streets, Port-of-Spain, ac­tu­al­ly on the ve­ran­dah of a house, hence its name. At the time, the old­er Vieira was shar­ing the build­ing with her sis­ter, fash­ion de­sign­er, Meil­ing.

Vieira re­calls how her moth­er-in-law had on­ly five to six seats avail­able for din­ers. To­day there seat­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion count­ed 45.

When she opened up shop, mom­my Vieira was al­so the so­lo chef un­til she hired Leslie-Ann Black­man, a grad­u­ate straight out of Ser­vol. Black­man has re­mained with the restau­rant to this date and is now the head chef.

"We are so sad to give up the lo­ca­tion be­cause it has so many mem­o­ries there. But I am cer­tain new and great mem­o­ries will al­so be formed from this new ven­ture," said Vieira.

Cus­tomers can now vis­it Ve­ran­dah's Cater­ing Ser­vice at 25 Brun­ton Road, St James.