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Jinnie was generally happy with the overall performance of TT SuperBurger (Group) Limited; all the divisions were trading profitably, and the various development plans were all progressing well, with one exception. The one fly in the ointment was the planned TT Continental – Ottawa. It seemed that every step was ponderously slow. First, it was getting agreement from the Caribbean board to even investigate costing the project. It seemed to be silly things, like a problem getting a flight from Bridgetown to Ottawa for Monica and Trevor. There being no direct flights, the only way was to change flights in either Toronto or Washington, but all flights were fully booked for a week. The travel agent had eventually booked them via New York and Montreal, and that took nearly 18 hours instead of under 9 hours for travelling via Washington.
Monica and Trevor arrived in Ottawa late on a Saturday afternoon and consequently were unable to see the premises until Monday, which was perhaps a good thing as it gave them a chance to recover from the journey. Both agreed that depending on the cost of the project, it would make a fine TT Continental. Following the visit to the proposed restaurant, Monica wanted to see a Canadian branch of Aunty JoJo’s, so she and Trevor headed to the Bearcat offices for a meeting with Molly and a trip to an outlet. They had flown home the next day, but this time via Washington.
Once the board had agreed to try to acquire the site, the Property Director had spent what seemed ages negotiating for a 10-year lease through the estate agent, while Brian had been working out set-up and running costs. Jinnie just wanted to get on with things; it was getting on towards Christmas, and she and the family were flying to Barbados for their Christmas cruise, and she wanted to have things settled before then. Just about all the other group projects were on or ahead of schedule, but every time they cleared a hurdle in Canada, a new one appeared.
Belinda’s purchase of Ontario Design Contractors had gone like a dream. Wright Refurbishment had reviewed the accounts and order book and made an offer that was quickly accepted. So, without any fuss, ODC had become a subsidiary of Wright Refurbishment and part of TT SuperBurger (Group) Limited. As discussed, the company name was changed and became TT Canada Design Contractors. The Canadian Civil Engineering media picked up on Belinda’s press release, and the news made it into the Canadian trade press, much to Jinnie’s delight. The press speculated that the TT SuperBurger Group were about to launch on the Canadian market, totally missing the news that they already had.
The expansion of the TT Continental in Bridgetown had been completed on time and on budget, and from the data Jinnie was receiving on SAP, the expanded restaurant was, if anything, doing even better business. The TT Ennios Bournemouth was trading well and was completely sold out for Christmas, as was the TT Ennios Southampton. The work on the conversion of the hotel in Dickersons Bay into the TT Ennios Antigua was on schedule but very slightly over budget, but it was so marginal that Belinda had assured Jinnie she would recover the overspend and bring the project in on budget and on time.
In the Caribbean, the UK, and Canada, Aunty JoJo’s was progressing more quickly than anyone had expected, and the trial of 6 Aunty JoJo’s and SuperBurger restaurants in Slovenia, after a slow start, was beginning to take off, but it had taken a radio advertising campaign to kick-start it. DKL were progressing with new kitchens in more British cities, and the first kitchen in Kingston was to open any day, with two more in other parts of the island scheduled to open within a month. The DKL board were considering venturing into Europe, but the big question was where; the current favourite was France, probably Paris, but they have plenty of big cities to choose from. Jinnie rather hoped that Property would suggest Nice; she would then have an excuse to visit the city and her old friend Simone and scout out possible locations for Aunty JoJo’s outlets.
With just 10 days to go before flying out on her Christmas cruise, Jinnie was delighted to be told, in an email from Trevor, that everything was finally in place for work to begin on the new Continental. They had all the permits and permissions; the lease was signed, the design agreed, and signed off by everyone. Jinnie had only just finished reading the email when her mobile rang in the holder/charger on her desk. The display said ‘Belinda’, and Jinnie guessed she had just read the same news. Belinda explained that Canadian Design Contractors were a little busy, having taken on a couple of small jobs while waiting for the Continental work to start. Consequently, they would now be starting the project directly after the Christmas break.
***
It was just after 15:00 when Paolo, Jinnie, Izzy and the twins stepped out of the 787 Dreamliner and headed for the line of coaches waiting for them. Having landed at Bridgetown before, the twins knew that these coaches would take them straight to the Britannia, so they raced ahead of their parents and all the other Premium Class passengers to get the front seats for themselves and the rest of their party. The coach set off as soon as it was full and headed to the port in the warm afternoon sun.
As they got nearer the port, the twins spotted the cruise ship towering over the surrounding buildings and started discussing whether they wanted to eat before or after going for a swim. Izzy said, “Hadn’t you better come with me first to sign you up for the Surfers? It gets filled up very quickly and then you can swim. Surely you can’t be hungry. You’ve just had lunch and a cream tea on the plane. If you’re really hungry, you could go to the Children’s Tea at 5pm, but I thought you wanted to go to dinner with Mummy and Daddy in the Main Dining Room tonight.” Willie grinned and said, “Yes, I want some of the tomato soup tonight. They do good tomato soup. So can we go to the Pool Grill and get chips?”
For some unknown reason, the rest of the party—Granny and Grandpa Walsh, and Auntie Penny and Uncle Dan—were on a second flight, an hour behind the De Lucas’ plane, so when they arrived, the twins were already splashing in one of the pools with Izzy, while Jinnie and Paolo were nearly finished unpacking and putting their holiday clothes away. As the previous year, all the suites were close together and all had the same butler, but this year it was an Indian who told them his name was Barry. Jinnie wondered what his real name was, as she had learned that most of the Indian cabin crew picked random Western names, and Rodney and Wilfred were among those servicing nearby cabins.
Because of the twins, the family had decided to eat on the first sitting, which was at six o’clock, and they all gathered in Jinnie and Paolo’s cabin, where they could spill onto the large balcony and drink the complimentary champagne that had been in the fridge and eat canapés that Barry had delivered. That is, everyone except the twins, who had small bottles of fruit juice from the fridge, which Jinnie said were mixers. It was a fraction after six when they were shown to the table they had been allocated for the cruise. Penny said she was certain the table was supposed to accommodate 10, but with 9, they had been spread out.
The waiter and the commis waiter fussed over them, finding cushions for the twins, spreading napkins in everyone’s laps, pouring glasses of iced water and bringing a selection of bread and rolls. The waiter finally asked Jinnie, “Will the children be having the junior menu?” She replied, “Certainly not, they both are used to dining in restaurants and can pick from the main menu.” With the waiter gone, the twins said to their mother that they both wanted tomato and basil soup, the fried breaded plaice, mushy peas and chips, and then ice cream. After the meal, the adults all had coffee and the twins hot chocolate, before Izzy took the twins back to their cabin for bed, and the rest of the party headed to the Crow’s Nest for a nightcap.
***
The following morning, the ship was still in port, waiting for the second batch of passengers to be flown out from the U.K. before sailing that evening. Jinnie awoke to the sun creeping around the edges of the curtain over the balcony window. She lay there for a few minutes, enjoying the thoughts that she was on holiday with no real work for two weeks, before Paolo stirred and she hopped out of bed to pull back the curtain and reveal a beautiful sunny morning. “Tea or coffee?” she asked as she switched the kettle on. She interrupted the grunt as “tea.”
After breakfast in the Epicurean, the family group split up, with the twins going to the Surfers Club in The Reef, Penny and Dan getting a taxi into town to go shopping, and Paolo settling on the suite balcony with a book. Mr and Mrs Walsh had booked an easy sightseeing excursion to the north coast of the island, Izzy went to the spa for a treatment, and Jinnie took the opportunity to visit Aunty JoJo’s for a chat with Patricia and Monica.
Jinnie’s taxi dropped her off at Aunty JoJo’s new offices. The old offices, over the central Bridgetown branch, had become much too small for the number of staff needed for the group’s fast-expanding Caribbean empire, and several floors in a new development had been leased and shared by Aunty JoJo’s, Continental Restaurants, DKL, Keith’s Refurbishment, and even SuperBurger. With them all under one roof, it had been obvious that there were savings to be made by the TT SuperBurger Group supplying central services like Finance, HR, IT, and Legal. The old Aunty JoJo’s offices were now an overspill for the DKL call centre, something that had only become possible when all the companies had become one. Jinnie hadn’t seen the new offices before, but while being shown to the director’s level, she recognised the style of a modern Wright Refurbishment design: glass partitions, shared workbenches, splashes of colour, and a general feeling of peace and calm.
Monica came out of her office to greet Jinnie, and they were soon seated and drinking coffee, which Jinnie noted with satisfaction was Jamaican Blue Mountain. Monica explained that these days Patricia didn’t bother coming into the office very often, as with SAP and her home office, there was little need. In any case, she was semi-retired and now relied on her to make the day-to-day decisions. Monica continued, “Patricia usually pops in once a week, and we sit and discuss strategic decisions, like the investment in Canada and our expansion in Jamaica. She still likes to keep an eye on the business but is happy to take a back seat. She is coming in this morning especially because she knows you are here.”
Monica told Jinnie that she was delighted how well everything was going. The shared central services worked well, and while any one company wasn’t big enough to have them all in-house, the combination of them all was and had brought considerable financial savings over the previous arrangement of outsourcing many things. Monica said she had arranged a buffet lunch in the shared Group Boardroom and that the managing directors from the other companies were going to be there. Monica said, “I know you are familiar with the likes of Trevor, Keith, and Anderson, but I don’t think you know Claire, who runs DKL Caribbean with Anderson. I have also invited the heads of the various group services. Of course, you know Michael, the Head of Legal, but you can also meet George from IT, Pricilla from HR, and Alex from Finance. Since the merger, we have taken to having a monthly meeting to discuss cross-company cooperation. It is amazing how useful it is to know what, where, and when other group companies are planning to do something.”
“I’m happy you are getting on so well,” replied Jinnie. “We do something similar at group board meetings. Now, while I have you alone, I have been thinking about something ever since I was in hospital here, and I would value your opinion. I must admit that I wasn’t much impressed with the hospital catering. Breakfast was OK, but not very exciting; lunch was just about acceptable, but the main meal in the evening was dire, and I arranged to get most of my evening meals delivered by DKL, either from the Continental or Anderson’s, and they were consistently excellent. Now, I know the hospital is on a strict cost-per-head budget, but I started wondering if we should be thinking about expanding into mass catering.”
“We could service hospitals, sports stadiums, factories and office restaurants, even big events like posh weddings,” continued Jinnie. “We have an ‘Events’ company in the UK, but it is a bit different in that it does weddings and parties during the year, but it makes most of its money at Christmas hosting huge parties for the staff of big companies and special events at showgrounds and the like for smaller companies who buy tickets for staff.”
“We do have some of those special parties at Christmas,” replied Monica, “but not many. I would like to try that as a reward for our staff; it could be fun. I think we have a lot of experience in the group with supplying all sorts of food. I love going to Test Matches at Kensington Oval, but the catering is not good. We could have outlets selling Aunty JoJo’s and others selling SuperBurger or Anderson’s food, we could even do posh ‘Continental’ meals for the members. I wonder when the current catering contract is up for renewal.”
“I like your enthusiasm,” said Jinnie, “but could we survive on one 5-day Test match a year?”
“I’m not suggesting that,” answered Monica. “I suppose my head was miles in front of my mouth. The Oval is used for many other things, like inter-island cricket matches, one-day internationals, T20s, national football matches, athletics, hockey matches, big concerts, and even the Miss Barbados pageant. But I was thinking about it for a Christmas Party venue. There’s hardly a week when nothing is happening there.”
“Now you have my interest,” said Jinnie. “You are clearly on the same wavelength as me. While I’m on my cruise, could you do a bit of an investigation into when the likes of the contracts at the Hospital and the Oval come up for renewal? Would we have much competition? Could we roll out the idea to other islands? I would like to try things out here first before rolling it out in the other markets. Have a word with Patricia; she may hate the idea. Can you also have a word with Anderson, see what he thinks? I am off to see Trevor before we’ve had lunch; I’ll get him to contact you. As for DKL, as their MD, I can assure you they will be onboard.”
“I’ll be happy to do that,” replied Monica. “I love it when we have a big new project to work on. It’s not as if we are not expanding Aunty JoJo’s as fast as possible, and the new hotel in Antigua is looking good. But this is what I really like—something new, something to get my teeth into. Can I contact you by email if anything interesting comes up? Should I talk to Michael about setting up a company, so we are ready?”
Jinnie thought for a moment before replying. “Yes, talk to Michael, but tell him to register the company as ‘Bearcat Caribbean’ and have its owners as a blind, like a firm of solicitors. That way, anyone keeping an eye on what Aunty JoJo’s is doing should be confused. We used the Bearcat name in Canada as our holding company, and no one caught on.”
***
Before her lunch with Monica and the rest of the management, Jinnie took the short walk down the road to the Continental and her meeting with Trevor. Jinnie reflected on her chat with Monica and just how fortunate she was having her at the helm of Aunty JoJo’s, even if it was nominally Patricia who was in charge. Jinnie started thinking about the structure of the TT SuperBurger Group’s Caribbean empire. Did it need a reshuffle now that Patricia was semi-retired? She had some good management in place, particularly with Monica, Trevor, and Anderson. Then there were Michael and Keith, although technically Keith worked for Belinda, who worked for her. Nothing needed to be done urgently, but if they went ahead with Bearcat Caribbean and it took off, then should it be a subsidiary of Aunty JoJo’s or TT SuperBurger (Caribbean), or directly under TT SuperBurger Group, or maybe even TT Events?
Jinnie still hadn’t made up her mind what to do when she arrived at the newly enlarged TT Continental and stood for a moment admiring the exterior of the newly enlarged restaurant. What had been the Gentleman’s outfitters had been seamlessly integrated into the restaurant, and unless you had known, you wouldn’t have realised that it was now two businesses merged into one building.
As Jinnie stood taking in the new frontage, the restaurant entrance door opened, and she was joined by Trevor, who said, “Hi, Jinnie, what do you think?” “Well, from the outside it looks pretty good. I can’t wait to see the inside,” she replied. They walked into the reception area, and Trevor led her through the old restaurant into the new extension. Jinnie looked around her and was delighted with what she saw. The new area was hardly distinguishable from the old, and Jinnie thought, ‘If I was allocated a table in the new extension, I’d be perfectly happy.’
At the end of the tour, Trevor led her into his old office and asked, “Before we get down to business, would you like a drink?” “I could murder an ice-cold Pepsi Max.” A few minutes later, Trevor returned with two glasses of Pepsi and said, “Well, boss, what do you think of the new extension?” “Magnificent,” replied Jinnie. “Belinda has done it again; you would never know that there was a new extension. It is identical to the old restaurant.” “Yes,” said Trevor, “that was the idea, to make them as alike as possible, and I think the design and workmanship are fabulous. What has been more important is that the customers plainly think so too. They keep coming in increasing numbers, the bookings are just as high as ever, and profits are well up.”
“Excellent,” said Jinnie. “What about Antigua? It is looking good on paper, but I prefer to hear your views.” “Well, the joint venture with Aunty JoJo’s is amazing. Now we are in the new season, and we have Carnival group ships overnighting in port every night of the week. We are selling out on the excursion seven nights a week. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner the ‘Continental at the TT Ennios Antigua’ opens, the better.” “So, how is the building work going?” asked Jinnie. “Pretty well,” replied Trevor. “We are a bit ahead of schedule, and we have reopened the hotel to guests with the cheap and medium-cost restaurants open. Until we open the Continental, we are offering a luxury minibus service to the TT Continental and a table in the non-excursion section of the restaurant for anyone who wants a high-class meal, and it has a high take-up.”
“That’s good news,” said Jinnie. “How are you getting on with the Ennios team?” “Really well,” replied Trevor. “I like Rick, he has been out several times checking on things, and gosh, does he know the hotel business. He has changed several of the management and has got the staff jumping. I hear that a guest survey has had some excellent results. As it stands, the hotel division will run the hotel and the two cheaper restaurants, and we will run the Continental as if it were a franchise. We have decided to see how it goes for a couple of months, and if it could be better, we will reorganise things. Keith tells me that he expects to hand over the restaurant in two or three weeks, which could be as much as three weeks ahead of schedule.”
“Wow,” said Jinnie. “That’s good. Have you told Brooke? She needs to tell Carnival as soon as possible so that they start selling the additional excursions.” “I have,” replied Trevor. “We have decided to go with the three-week estimate because Keith can guarantee that. If he hands over a little early, we might miss out on a few covers for a week, but we can sell tables at both restaurants locally.” “As you know,” said Jinnie, “I am on P&O Britannia with the family for Christmas and the New Year, and we sail tonight. We have booked the ‘Fine Dining’ excursion for next Thursday evening, when we are in Antigua, so that I can experience it like any other passenger. I would appreciate it if you don’t tell anyone at the restaurant. But would it be possible for someone to pick me up at the cruise terminal, at say 10 o’clock on Friday morning, so I can have a look at the Ennios Antigua? The family has booked a beach trip for the day, so I will be in no hurry.”
“You obviously don’t know, but I understand Brooke and her partner are staying at the Ennios over Christmas and the New Year. She tells me she has used rewards points for the flights and got a company discount at the hotel. I’m sure she will pick you up and show you around, and she should have no problem recognising you at the cruise terminal.” “She deserves a holiday in the sun,” replied Jinnie. “She has spent ages in Canada and travelling backwards and forwards recently. She has put in a lot of good work on both Aunty JoJo’s Canadian operation and the TT Continental Ottawa. It will be good to see her; we haven’t been able to get together since I saw her in Canada weeks ago.”
“You realise that soon you will have three Continental restaurants open, do you intend to build the chain?” asked Trevor. “Of course,” answered Jinnie. “I am always on the lookout for new opportunities. I look at the Trattoria Trevi as our European restaurant chain and TT Continental as our Americas chain. At the moment I don’t really want to have more than one on this island, as I suspect a second on Barbados would steal your business. Antigua is a bit different because of the connection with the cruise ships. But I would love to open a Continental in Trinidad, maybe two, and I’m pretty sure there is room for at least two in Jamaica. As for Ennios hotels, I reckon we could have at least one on most islands. If you spot an opportunity for a hotel or two in Barbados, please let me know.”
“Now I have something I want to get your opinion on,” continued Jinnie. She then repeated her idea of a mass catering division to Trevor, who listened intently. At the end of her suggestion, Trevor nodded and said, “I like the concept, but don’t you think it could be hard and expensive to set up?” “Yes,” replied Jinnie, “but if it was easy, loads of people would already be doing it. In the U.K., we already had several mass catering companies who have contracts to service lots of places, companies like Compass and Delaware North. They are enormous with a turnover vastly more than the whole TT SuperBurger Group. If we were to set up in the U.K., we would be crushed immediately.”
“My idea is to start off small,” continued Jinnie, “and grow the company out of sight of the big British companies. I want to start in Barbados, move to other Caribbean islands, then maybe Canada or Western Europe. When we are big enough, we can try a bid in Britain. I don’t expect to win, but they won’t be able to crush us. But we will learn where we need to improve our bid, trim our costs, talk to the right people and learn to fight dirty. I fully expect the first few jobs we bid for in the U.K. will be lost on price, but we will be a pain in the arse of the big boys and force them to cut their bloated margins. Eventually, they will hit a floor they can’t go below, but as a private company, we will be able to undercut them. Once we get in somewhere, a hospital, a football stadium, a factory canteen, we will pick up more contracts and we will be up and running and able to compete with the likes of Compass.”
“And you want to start all this here in Barbados?” asked Trevor.
“Yes,” said Jinnie. “None of the big caterers seem to be here. I suspect the market is considered too small. Just look at the likes of one large football stadium in London. On a match day, they have 34 food and drink outlets for the ‘ordinary fans.’ These sell the likes of pies, hot dogs, burgers, giant sausages in long rolls, chicken wings, sausage rolls, wraps, pizza and nachos. They also sell beer, spirits, wine, tea, coffee, and soft drinks. Then there are eight restaurants, some can seat 500 fans. I nearly forgot there are also 150 boxes that can hold up to 15 people who all get a 3-course meal and drinks. Then they do conferences and company meetings, the stadium even has boxing matches and music concerts, and they all need catering.”
“Of course they are catering for 50, 60, or 70 thousand people. A game attracts nearly 90 thousand at Wembley for Delaware North, so 28,000 at the Kensington Oval is peanuts to them,” continued Jinnie. “I understand that Compass alone turns over more than £1 billion a year.” “Gosh, I had no idea mass catering was such big business,” said Trevor. “Nor did I until I started looking into it a bit deeper. Now you can see why I want in and to try to do it via the back door. I have been talking to Monica, and she is going to do a bit of research on the possible targets like the Oval, Queen Elizabeth Hospital and any other places she can think of. Do you think you can help her by costing, say, a decent 3-course meal suitable for, say, members at the Oval, a director’s dining room, or a hospital doctor’s canteen?”
“I’m going back to the corporate offices for the management lunch as soon as we are done,” said Trevor. “I’ll talk to Monica as soon as I get there. I take it that this bit of research is top secret and only for the three of us at the moment.” “Absolutely,” replied Jinnie. “But I think I might bring Brooke into the inner circle when I see her next week. I think the four of us will make a pretty good team and if this project is possible, we will make it so.”
***
After a pleasant lunch and a chat with Patricia, who was very happy how business was progressing, Jinnie got a cab back to the port and was dropped off outside the entrance to the big hall where all the port’s duty-free shops were located. Before being allowed to enter, she had to show her cruise card to security and then joined the people coming back from excursions who were being forced to walk past all the shops and stands to get to the door leading to the dockside and then walk to the old, converted banana warehouse where the check-in desks, x-ray machine and magnetic arch were located. Once through the port security, she had to show her cruise card to a ship’s security officer before climbing the gangway and presenting her card once again, this time to a reader that registered her back on board.
Back on board, she was delighted to be able to wait for a lift in the cool air-conditioning of the ship. But as normal, the gangway was giving access to the forward lift and her cabin was at the stern of the ship on B deck (deck 14). In fact, the family had the four suites across the back of the ship, and Izzy had a double cabin for single occupancy next to Paolo and Jinnie’s cabin. With the doors between the balconies open, the twins had free rein to all the family cabins. Jinnie walked virtually the full length of Deck 14 and let herself into cabin B726 to find Paolo on the balcony watching the people boarding through the binoculars supplied in the cabin. He said, “Hello, I watched you walk down the dock, go into the terminal and walk up the gangway. It’s surprising how long it takes to get from the forward gangway to here.” “You don’t have to tell me,” replied Jinnie. “I just walked it. Where are the twins?” “Still in Surfers,” answered Paolo. “They had such a good time this morning they gobbled down pizza for lunch and wanted to go straight back. But Izzy told them it wasn’t open again until two, so Izzy and I took them in the pool for a bit. I haven’t seen them swim for a while, and my, they are good; I had trouble keeping up with them. Anyway, they kept asking the time, so I think those watches we got them for Christmas will be appreciated. Izzy said she will bring them back in time to get ready for dinner and drinks first.”
Jinnie checked her watch; it was only 15:45. There was time for an hour’s siesta before a shower and getting changed, in peace, before the twins were due back when Surfers closed at five.
In Chapter 5 – Plans evolve
© WorthingGooner 2025
