When the stars align between two people, nothing can stand in their way.
This is the partnership between Navendra Bhukhal and Amanda Ramlal-Bhukhal, the duo causing a buzz in the Southland under the name Bumpy’s Barbeque.
Just eleven years ago, Bhukhal, fondly called Bumpy for his fast-bowling cricketing skills, charted his path in the food industry.
Faced with practical realities, his dream of becoming a professional cricketer had to give way.
He grew up in a humble home, the third of three children. As soon as he finished secondary school, he was forced to take up employment with a relative in San Fernando to help out at home, as his parents could not afford to send him to university.
Grateful for the opportunity, he worked as a sous chef for 15 years.
When it became monotonous, however, some introspection led him to conceptualise a business strategy for himself.
His wife and business partner, Ramlal-Bhukhal, has her own story to tell. Both hail from neighbouring communities—Fyzabad and Mon Desir— but from different walks of life. He was a cricketer turned chef and she was a primary school teacher with ambitions to further her studies and establish her own business. They met at a cricket match, and the rest is history.
She said during their courtship, he always expressed his dream to open his own business, but what they have accomplished is even more than they envisioned.
He said, “Furthering my studies would not have paid off, so I had to look for a job at my family’s BBQ business. They hired me straight out of school. I really wanted to be a cricketer, but I didn’t have the time to train in order to develop what was required to make the T&T team and work at the same time, so I couldn’t do both.”
Destined to be an entrepreneur, he worked and acquired the necessary tools for the food industry. Fifteen years later, Bumpy started his own brand in Fyzabad, where he toiled over hot coals to establish the rich BBQ smoke taste of chicken, pork, fish, lamb and pigtail covered in specially prepared garlic, BBQ, pepper and mustard sauces.
He said his goal is customer service and quality food that is affordable.
“We started in Fyzabad and lasted there for ten months, then we went to Rousillac, and we opened a shop in San Fernando, but it was challenging. We decided to focus on Rousillac alone. Ten years after, the highway opened. The Point Fortin customers say they are not coming off the road to go to Rousillac, you need to come to us. So here we are in Point Fortin,” he said.
This is where Ramlal-Bhukhal’s expertise comes in. Having worked in the Human Resources Department at Atlantic LNG, she brings a strong professional foundation to the business. A devoted couple with a shared vision, they have carved out clear roles: she manages the financial side while juggling the joys of raising their three-year-old son, Cristiano, and Bumpy oversees the day-to-day operations as a labour of love.
She said, “It was opened to create family time and flexibility. I had a full-time job at Atlantic LNG, because I have my Master’s in Business, a BSc in Management Studies with first-class honours, so I was working Monday to Friday, and he was working Wednesday to Sunday. When we got married, we said this can’t work out. My background is Human Resource Management, with a Master’s in Business Administration, BSc in Management Studies with first-class honours. A lecturer said that if you are not going to own your own business at some point, you are wasting your time; it is always best to run your own business. I kept my job, and in 2019, five years after Bumpy’s was established, I left my job to work full time at the business. It was a move that shocked a lot of people, very risky, and him leaving his job was too.”
She continued, “Plenty of people just see the front of the business but don’t see the background work. We have a good complement of workers. Customer service and the quality of food to bring to people are our top priority. The secret is in the sauce, and we never compromise with our sauce, even though the prices have increased over the years. We look internally to see how we can manage costs and reduce wastage, so that we don’t have to pass on every cost incurred to the customer. Our $45 chicken combo special today is still the same as when we opened 11 years ago; that price remains. Other prices have changed; we went down to $40 a couple of years ago.”
Ramlal-Bhukhal said they were asked many times to expand the brand to Port of Spain, Sangre Grande, and Central, but they agreed to keep Bumpy’s “exotic” in South to maintain the quality standards.
Bumpy is now renting at a location on Mainfield Road, near the Victor Chin Kit Park in Point Fortin, but said his goal is to acquire land and open his own establishment in an open-air environment to cater to his customers.
His siblings, Garvi Bhukhal and Trecia Ibrahim, are also part of his business.
Comparing differences and weighing the pros and cons, he said employer and employee roles are different. “As an employer, you are the first one on site and last to leave at times, but when you treat your workers right, they have your best interest at heart, and we have good staff,” he said.
“In the 11 years, I never regretted it; it is the best move to get an income. Our main challenge is the rise in prices of stuff coming from abroad. In the beginning, we had to try out different locations, which was challenging. It was costly, but we had to find our niche market, and we realised that it was the South West side of the island,” he said.
Reflecting on his past, when “only on my birthday, was when I would have chicken, that was a delicacy then,” to his accomplishments today, there are charitable contributions they support, including sporting initiatives, school initiatives, and cultural groups in the Point Fortin and Rousillac communities, including the cricket team Bumpy still plays with, the Fyzabad Elite Sports Club. He said he hopes that young people with dreams would have a strong mindset and would follow them.
