In an unas­sum­ing back­street in Mara­bel­la, Ce­leste John-Roberts has been qui­et­ly rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing the lo­cal culi­nary scene with her es­tab­lish­ment, Monique’s Kitchen.

Known for her mas­tery of tra­di­tion­al Tri­ni Cre­ole, In­di­an and Chi­nese dish­es us­ing au­then­tic in­gre­di­ents, John-Roberts re­cent­ly un­veiled a tan­ta­lis­ing East­er cre­ation: a unique fu­sion of a hot cross bun and a dough­nut filled with Bavar­i­an cream which is avail­able at her Union Road “grab an go” and cater­ing busi­ness.

Priced at $66 per dozen, this de­lec­table treat has sparked a surge in de­mand, prompt­ing John-Roberts and her team to work over­time to meet or­ders for the sea­son.

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian she shared, “Our tra­di­tion­al hot cross buns are spiced and filled with fruit. We sell those for $56 per dozen. Our stuffed hot cross buns are a re­al deca­dent treat. The Bavar­i­an cream oozes out of the bun as you bite in. It’s a cus­tard-creamy tex­ture not over­pow­er­ing­ly sweet that is sat­is­fy­ing. It’s the East­er egg for adults.

“We tried our hot cross buns recipe many times to make sure we got the sweet­ness right. If it was too sweet, then you wouldn’t be able to en­joy the fill­ing com­bined with the cross on top. In bak­ing, it is so very sci­en­tif­ic that mess­ing with one el­e­ment of the recipe could cre­ate a fault with an­oth­er but through tri­al and er­ror, I am pleased with the re­sult.”

At the peak of the East­er pe­ri­od, the busi­ness made about 1,000 buns per day and with the stuffed buns be­ing sold more than the tra­di­tion­al ones; the lat­ter of which eas­i­ly reached about 600 to 800 buns per day.

John-Roberts cred­it­ed the suc­cess of her new prod­uct to care­ful plan­ning and strate­gic pro­mo­tion, es­pe­cial­ly for such a sea­son­al item with a short shelf life.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she lever­aged so­cial me­dia, cus­tomer sam­pling and tar­get­ed mar­ket­ing cam­paigns to gen­er­ate buzz and dri­ve sales even fur­ther.

“We have been do­ing mass mar­ket­ing on so­cial me­dia, we dis­trib­uted fly­ers when we opened,” she said, adding that she was thrilled to see her new prod­uct take off.

John-Roberts al­so re­count­ed her roller coast­er jour­ney of en­tre­pre­neur­ial tri­umphs and tribu­la­tions.

Shar­ing in­sights in­to her en­tre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney and the gen­e­sis of Monique’s Kitchen which was named af­ter her daugh­ter Nasya Monique-John-Roberts de­scribed hers as not an easy road.

Hav­ing com­plet­ed a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Ho­tel Man­age­ment from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and al­so study­ing for two years in Nas­sau Ba­hamas, John-Roberts then set out to achieve her child­hood dream of open­ing her restau­rant.

She said the idea of Monique’s Kitchen was nur­tured in a child­hood home where meals were not just sus­te­nance but an en­gage­ment of culi­nary de­light as well as mem­o­rable gath­er­ings filled with laugh­ter.

“My par­ents were food en­thu­si­asts, mak­ing hours in the kitchen seem ef­fort­less. Sun­days were es­pe­cial­ly mem­o­rable with mom­my recre­at­ing some­thing from Sylvia Hunt or an ex­cerpt from the week­end news­pa­per.

“One Sun­day was par­tic­u­lar­ly fun­ny as we ate Aun­ty Kay’s lunch my fa­ther quipped, ‘While we wait­ed pa­tient­ly for mom’s ver­sion of stuffed toma­toes. The food was great, but the din­ing made it mem­o­rable,” John-Roberts said.

Since then John-Roberts want­ed to cre­ate that epic am­biance for her cus­tomers while al­so build­ing a good life for her three daugh­ters Nasya, Eliz­a­beth and Em­ma.

As her dream be­came a re­al­i­ty, John-Roberts not­ed that the de­ci­sion to es­tab­lish Monique’s Kitchen stemmed from prac­ti­cal­i­ty and af­ford­abil­i­ty.

“It took me 10 years to build, equip, and com­mis­sion my own com­mer­cial kitchen. I chose to do it at my home out of ne­ces­si­ty. This is the space that I had and could af­ford so, this is where I opened. I had the equip­ment but I could not af­ford the hood for the kitchen. My aunt helped me,” she ex­plained.

Al­so, the ris­ing cost of food was an­oth­er fac­tor in John-Roberts open­ing her en­ti­ty at home.

While it may have been tough at times she, how­ev­er, strove on.

“I had a par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing 2023 and need­ed to do more than just piv­ot but to re­build from the in­side out. Busi­ness is so dy­nam­ic that when you think you un­der­stand the game ei­ther the play­ers or the rules change and it re­al­ly forces you to face your truths and gauge where you are at phys­i­cal­ly, fi­nan­cial­ly and even emo­tion­al­ly as a per­son, be­cause be­ing suc­cess­ful takes from every bone and fi­bre of your col­lec­tive be­ing,” she said.

Draw­ing from her 17 years of en­tre­pre­neur­ial ex­pe­ri­ence, John-Roberts said she al­so learned from her mis­takes and lever­aged her set­backs as op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth.

Key to suc­cess, she at­test­ed, con­tin­ues to be her ded­i­cat­ed and hard-work­ing team

“We are like a fam­i­ly. I tell them when I am suc­cess­ful when they are suc­cess­ful. I want them all to build some­thing good for their fam­i­lies, af­ter all, what­ev­er we do, we do for our fam­i­ly and our chil­dren,” she said.

Al­ways seek­ing to strength­en this bond John-Roberts, not­ed that ap­pre­ci­a­tion is al­so an im­por­tant fac­tor in the scheme of things.

“Nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate the pow­er of a good team. A good lawyer, ac­coun­tant or ad­min­is­tra­tive sup­port. Small busi­nes­sown­ers think they can’t af­ford it...but a good team feeds you time­ly da­ta that can in­form your busi­ness de­ci­sions. They al­so help free up the time you need to be cre­ative and dri­ve your vi­sion for­ward,” she ad­vised.

Look­ing ahead, John-Roberts en­vi­sions ex­pand­ing Monique’s Kitchen be­yond sea­son­al items, with plans to ven­ture in­to farm-to-ta­ble din­ing and the man­u­fac­tur­ing of ready-to-eat frozen meals.

“I want to have my own gar­den with fresh sea­son­ings and oth­er pro­duce. We are all work­ing to get our farm up and run­ning in due time. I re­cent­ly com­plet­ed a course with CARIRI (Caribbean In­dus­tri­al Re­search In­sti­tute) on food safe­ty and glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing prac­tices. It was so in­sight­ful, but I have a lot of in­fra­struc­ture to put in place,” she said.

Re­gard­ing the wor­ry­ing crime sit­u­a­tion which con­tin­ues to im­pede busi­ness, John-Roberts ad­mit­ted that op­er­at­ing in an area char­ac­terised by crime pos­es chal­lenges.

“Some­times I have no words for my fears. I just close my eyes look up to the Heav­ens and ask God dai­ly for His guid­ance and His pro­tec­tion. Every morn­ing my em­ploy­ees, we hold hands and pray be­fore the doors open. We ac­knowl­edge that we live and breathe on­ly through His grace,” John-Roberts re­vealed.

On ad­vice to as­pir­ing en­tre­pre­neurs, John-Roberts urged them to work tire­less­ly and re­main stead­fast in the pur­suit of ex­cel­lence.

“I think there are a lot of young peo­ple who are fear­less, filled with gump­tion and con­vic­tion. I say jump in head first and you’ll learn. Be will­ing to work, very very hard. Know that the buck stops with you… no one else to blame when things go wrong, so do all in your pow­er to make it go right,” she shared.

She al­so recog­nised the in­valu­able sup­port avail­able to young en­tre­pre­neurs through or­gan­i­sa­tions like the Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd and Unit­ed Trust Cor­po­ra­tion, as she fur­ther rec­om­mend­ed it was im­por­tant for busi­ness­es to be reg­is­tered and ad­here to reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments when seek­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance.

As Monique’s Kitchen con­tin­ues to cap­ti­vate taste­buds and in­spire culi­nary cre­ativ­i­ty in T&T, it is in­deed des­tined to take the world by storm.