An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Once the heart­beat of Port-of-Spain’s nightlife, Ari­api­ta Av­enue has dimmed not just in en­er­gy, but in foot traf­fic, se­cu­ri­ty and in­vestor con­fi­dence.
What was once a bustling strip of bars, restau­rants and en­ter­tain­ment is now fac­ing a dif­fer­ent kind of rep­u­ta­tion: one in­creas­ing­ly marred by con­cerns over crime and safe­ty.

For Umesh Meena, own­er and chef of the up­scale restau­rant Ely­si­um Bar and Lounge, lo­cat­ed on Ari­api­ta Av­enue, the trans­for­ma­tion has been any­thing but easy.

“This isn’t the av­enue I first met when I came to T&T in 2013,” Meena told Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian. “I knew the risks when I opened, but I be­lieved in the con­cept  and I be­lieved in the peo­ple. What I didn’t ex­pect was to be bat­tling crime and fear more than I was bat­tling the mar­ket.”

With dwin­dling night­time crowds and grow­ing re­ports of pet­ty theft, ha­rass­ment and vi­o­lence, en­tre­pre­neurs like Meena are be­ing forced to make tough de­ci­sions, from cut­ting back on late-night hours to in­vest­ing in pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty.  

For many, the Av­enue’s once-glam­orous promise has been re­placed by an un­easy ques­tion: is it still worth it?

With COVID-19 pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions, from March 2020 to May 2023, sev­er­al restau­rant were forced to close down or change lo­ca­tion. An­ge­lo’s closed its doors, but is now open at Mar­aval Plaza Mall. Mai Thai, just off the Av­enue on Car­los Street al­so closed, and the oth­er ca­su­al­ty was Pas­sage to Asia, which was next to Ely­si­um.

Open­ing Ely­si­um in Ju­ly 2024, he said, a glob­al­ly in­spired lounge-meets-din­ing-ex­pe­ri­ence on low­er Ari­api­ta meant do­ing so amid grow­ing safe­ty con­cerns and de­clin­ing week­end crowds. It was a far cry from the vi­brant days of the ear­ly 2010s when traf­fic jams out­side Arias and the side­walk lime cul­ture were week­end norms.

“A lot of my Meena House guests didn’t want to come here at first,” he ad­mit­ted. “They just didn’t feel safe.  I had to meet them halfway.”

That “halfway” came in the form of strate­gic in­vest­ments: a se­cured pri­vate car park on Fitt Street, mon­i­tored round-the-clock, and a fo­cus on com­fort and vis­i­bil­i­ty, open kitchens, vis­i­ble hy­giene pro­to­cols and trans­paren­cy in op­er­a­tions.

To­day, foot traf­fic is slow­ly re­bound­ing, al­beit cau­tious­ly. “It’s not the Ari­api­ta of a decade ago,” Meena ad­mits, “but we’ve brought back peo­ple who swore they’d nev­er re­turn. That’s progress.”

Nav­i­gat­ing the forex crunch

The chal­lenges of do­ing busi­ness in Trinidad ex­tend far be­yond crime and lo­ca­tion. Like many in the food and bev­er­age sec­tor, Ely­si­um and sis­ter restau­rant Meena House re­ly heav­i­ly on im­port­ed goods, from Unit­ed States wines to In­di­an spices.

“Spices can’t sit on a shelf for years,” says Umesh. “They lose their oils, their flavour. We grind our own. We store them un­der 18°C. We don’t com­pro­mise on qual­i­ty.”

But qual­i­ty comes at a cost. With on­go­ing forex short­ages, get­ting US dol­lars to im­port re­mains a strug­gle. Umesh’s so­lu­tion? Mul­ti-cur­ren­cy flex­i­bil­i­ty.

“Rough­ly 25–30 per cent of our sales now come in US dol­lars,” he re­vealed. For­eign card­hold­ers are billed in US dol­lar au­to­mat­i­cal­ly, a sim­ple tech up­grade, but a fi­nan­cial gamechang­er.

This dual-pric­ing mod­el has eased the bur­den, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to deal­ing with long-time over­seas sup­pli­ers. Trust, he said, has gone a long way. “Dur­ing COVID, my sup­pli­ers gave me two years’ grace. That kind of re­la­tion­ship mat­ters.”

Still, the wider prob­lem re­mains un­re­solved.

“Long term, if Trinidad can’t earn US dol­lar through tourism or ex­ports, this prob­lem won’t go away. Restau­rants can on­ly do so much.”

Cri­sis  

In Ju­ly, Ely­si­um was thrust in­to the spot­light for all the wrong rea­sons. A cus­tomer took to so­cial me­dia claim­ing they’d found a mag­got in their meal. The vi­ral post trig­gered swift back­lash and im­me­di­ate dam­age to the restau­rant’s rep­u­ta­tion.

“It hit us hard,” Meena re­called. “But it al­so gave us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to dou­ble down on trans­paren­cy.”

A full in­ves­ti­ga­tion, con­duct­ed joint­ly with health of­fi­cials, found no ev­i­dence of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. But for Meena, it wasn’t enough to sim­ply say the restau­rant was safe, he had to show it.

From open-con­cept kitchens to sani­ti­sa­tion pro­to­cols logged every three hours, to us­ing Eco­lab-cer­ti­fied clean­ing agents in­stead of lo­cal al­ter­na­tives, he made it all vis­i­ble.

“We’ve al­ways had those stan­dards. The dif­fer­ence is, now we talk about them more. We will show them.”

Still, the in­ci­dent had a re­al fi­nan­cial im­pact. “Rev­enue dipped,” he con­firmed, “be­cause peo­ple don’t wait for proof, they re­act to head­lines.”

The take­away? In­vest in sto­ry­telling be­fore a cri­sis hits. “We’re now work­ing on a mar­ket­ing cam­paign that shows every­thing from how we grind spices to how we man­age our kitchens, even how we wash dish­es.”

Look­ing to ex­pand

De­spite head­winds, Meena is eye­ing growth not nec­es­sar­i­ly in Port-of-Spain, but abroad. Plans are un­der­way to bring the Ely­si­um con­cept to Guyana, where a grow­ing ex­pa­tri­ate pop­u­la­tion is de­mand­ing more up­scale culi­nary ex­pe­ri­ences.

“Guyana is on the radar, not Meena House, but Ely­si­um. It’s a more flex­i­ble mod­el for that mar­ket.”

Pre­lim­i­nary talks are un­der­way with ho­tel de­vel­op­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those build­ing with­in George­town. But the restau­rant own­er is cau­tious. “Let’s wait for their elec­tions to set­tle. I want to see what kind of in­vest­ment cli­mate ex­ists af­ter that.”

Skilled labour is an is­sue

Ely­si­um may look like a pol­ished prod­uct, but be­hind the scenes, Umesh is grap­pling with an­oth­er uni­ver­sal prob­lem, which is skilled labour.

“There’s no prop­er ho­tel school here,” he said. “We can’t keep bring­ing in for­eign­ers; it’s not sus­tain­able.”  

He’s now con­sid­er­ing launch­ing an ap­pren­tice­ship ini­tia­tive, invit­ing school-leavers who help cook at home to train un­der his chefs. “Some peo­ple just have the nat­ur­al touch. They need some­one to nur­ture that.”

A year in, Ely­si­um’s jour­ney is one of cre­ative per­sis­tence. As the restau­rant sec­tor fights to stay afloat amidst falling rev­enue, forex bat­tles, and shift­ing con­sumer con­fi­dence, Umesh’s ap­proach stands out: Cre­ate a menu that every­one can agree on: Of­fer mul­ti­ple cur­ren­cies to ease forex strain; Re­spond to back­lash with trans­paren­cy, not de­fen­sive­ness: In­vest in train­ing, sto­ry­telling and on build­ing long-term brand trust

Even with a 5 to 10 per cent rev­enue de­cline at Meena House this year, com­pared to last, Ely­si­um’s num­bers have out­paced ex­pec­ta­tions, ce­ment­ing its po­si­tion as one of the few suc­cess sto­ries on the Av­enue.

“You can’t mi­cro­man­age for­ev­er,” he stat­ed. “You build your team. You build trust. And you move for­ward.”

Charles Car­val­ho, a found­ing mem­ber of the new­ly formed Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, points to a per­fect storm of is­sues. He said restau­rants and bars in Port of Spain are strug­gling, and the root caus­es are both glob­al and lo­cal.

“Just last week, I was watch­ing MSNBC and CNN. In Wash­ing­ton, restau­rant own­ers are re­port­ing loss­es of US$4,000 to US$7,000 a night be­cause of height­ened se­cu­ri­ty. Now, while I’m not say­ing Trinidad’s sit­u­a­tion is ex­act­ly the same, when you sud­den­ly see a drop in sales in Port of Spain, es­pe­cial­ly with tighter polic­ing or SOE-like con­di­tions, that could very well be a con­tribut­ing fac­tor,” Car­val­ho dis­closed.

But be­yond se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, he in­di­cat­ed that the deep­er is­sues lie in eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties and lo­cal habits. “Rent on Ari­api­ta is be­com­ing un­af­ford­able. And if you don’t own the build­ing, you’re ba­si­cal­ly work­ing for your land­lord,” Charles not­ed. “You’re see­ing that same churn with mall shops open­ing and clos­ing every month. The busi­ness mod­el is un­sus­tain­able.”