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Jinnie sat at her desk in Maple House and, in her head, reviewed the last year. She divided events into TT SuperBurger-related work, SIS, and family. She wanted to speak to the board later that day about the year’s major events and achievements, and just how well TT SuperBurger was doing. She had a ‘Year in Review’ slot in today’s agenda right after Brian’s monthly Financial Report, and knew he was going to report a fantastic November’s trading.
They had talked about finances only yesterday, and Brian had given her a sneak preview of his report and told her how well things were going. Just about every division had a growing cash pile, and the Group bank account was very healthy. Brian had asked if she had any fresh projects up her sleeve to launch at the board meeting. Jinnie had smiled and said, “Not really, the only thing I want to ask for is, now that the Ennios Miami is turning a decent profit, I would like the board to give the formal go-ahead for the building of the proposed luxury wing. But they know all about the project and it has been agreed in principle once the hotel was in profit. I think there will be a few other things arising from the review, but they will not involve main board-level expenditure.”
***
As always, the business was expanding on all fronts. Jinnie wondered where to start. Should it be the FastFood Division? It had grown enormously, and she understood Alberto was going to launch the discussion on whether it was time to spin off Aunty JoJo’s into a separate division and look at bringing its Caribbean and Canadian companies in-house by offering to buy out the jointly owned companies. Jinnie was ready to counter-argue ‘yes’ to a new division, but with a new holding company at the top, with Monica in charge, and geographic groups below. That way, the Caribbean, US, Canadian, British, Irish, and Slovenian company structures could remain unchanged. Only the reporting structure would change.
Jinnie also wanted to talk about the fledgling Caribbean businesses that had been launched earlier in the year. At the moment, Artisan Donuts and Bearcat Catering (Caribbean) sat under Bearcat Foods (Caribbean), the vehicle for 50% of Aunty JoJo’s and all its Caribbean spin-offs, but Jinnie didn’t think either sat comfortably in that reporting position. Both were new companies, were, as yet, very small, and needed nurturing. She felt they were in danger of being overwhelmed in the much larger Aunty JoJo’s group of companies, which had completely different main interests.
Artisan Donuts had bought the small bakery that supplied the donuts and had scaled up production. All the Aunty JoJo’s in Barbados now sold Artisan Donuts, and there were two shops, one in Bridgetown and one in Speightstown, where sales were excellent. Jorja was nominally in charge, but it was Gracie who was running the business day to day. Gracie thought there was probably room for two more shops in Barbados, one in Holetown and one in Oistins, as well as at least one outlet at the Kensington Oval, and Jinnie agreed. However, Jinnie wanted to push the brand into other islands. The obvious ones were Trinidad and Jamaica, but it meant investing in a bakery on each island, shops, and a distribution network. Jinnie wanted to discuss making Artisan Donuts a standalone business directly under Brooke’s Fast Food Group, where it could grow. If FastFood lost Aunty JoJo’s, Brooke could be trusted to nurture Artisan Donuts, and it also fitted nicely with Artisan Sandwiches.
But Jinnie needed to sort out the management. Gracie was doing a good job at Aunty JoJo’s, and she wanted to leave her there. She had not long ago put Jorja and Sebastian together to build the Catering/Events business and had a feeling it was about to take off, so wasn’t going to change that team. That meant finding someone else to manage Artisan Donuts. Monica had suggested Leah, another of her team when she had run Aunty JoJo’s.
***
The catering business’s Events arm had started slowly, with a few big weddings, but the Christmas party business was really selling well. They had hired the Barbados National Stadium at Waterford, a suburb of Bridgetown, for the month of December. The open-air stadium wasn’t ideal, but they had hired the biggest marquees available and managed to seat 300 for a meal with entertainment and dancing. At Jorja’s suggestion, they were serving a traditional Bajan Christmas dinner — baked ham glazed with pineapple, turkey, alongside jug jug, pepper-pot stew, macaroni pie, and candied sweet potatoes, all prepared in the Continentals DKL Kitchen. Miranda had acted as consultant and had suggested a funfair, and that was proving the difference between the Bearcat party and other ones available. Jinnie was more than happy with the way Jorja had been building the business, but thought it might be better reporting to Miranda’s fast-growing TT SuperBurger Events until it was big enough to split into an international catering business and a Caribbean events business. It was another one for the board.
Trattoria Trevi (Restaurants) was going from strength to strength and had just opened its 53rd restaurant in the UK and Ireland. Jinnie wondered how many more the British Isles could support and wanted to discuss launching in free Europe. She scribbled a note on her new Kindle Scribe. DKL were in a similar position to Trattoria Trevi, had virtually saturated the British Isles, and she wanted to push the board into Europe. Perhaps they should cooperate with Trattoria Trevi. She made another note on her Scribe.
SuperBurger were a little more adventurous, having already opened a dozen or more outlets in Slovenia paired with Aunty JoJo’s outlets, but she wanted to push to expand further in Europe. Jinnie scratched her head. What to say about the Fast Food Division? She had already decided to agree to the suggested stripping out of Aunty JoJo’s before it completely overwhelmed the other chains in the group. The Sybaritic and Artisan Sandwiches stand-alone outlets were all making decent money, but the decision to combine them to share common outlets had really worked, and in the UK they were only opening joint outlets. Jinnie decided to try to also push this concept in France with a couple of test outlets in, say, both Paris and Lyon. She made another note on her Scribe that they might need to hire some French speakers.
Her next thoughts were the Hotels Group. It was growing nicely. There were now eight hotels open and the ninth, in the Cotswolds, was under development. Rick had big plans. He wanted to open in Central London, Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast, New York and San Francisco. Jinnie had told him to look for likely hotels to purchase, but they would never be likely to be able to fund more than one new hotel at a time, especially if they were to go ahead with the luxury wing in Miami. Hotels currently sat under Trattoria Trevi and were Jinnie’s next candidate for a separate division. Jinnie thought to herself, they weren’t big enough yet, maybe when they got to 20 profitable hotels, and that wasn’t going to happen for a while.
What else should she talk about? Well, the Construction Division was flying. Jinnie had no worries about Belinda’s division. Every time they spoke, Belinda seemed to be reporting new contracts on top of the steady stream of in-house work from all the other divisions. On last month’s report, she had reported over £50 million in new orders worldwide. She now had Keith’s in Barbados, CDC in Canada, Weissman’s Florida, Makovec Contractors in Slovenia, and O’Malley Refurbishments in Dublin. Could she mention the latest order for government work at Portsmouth Dockyard, or was it on the secret list? Perhaps she should talk to Belinda before the board meeting.
Finally, Jinnie came to the two new projects, Bearcat Catering and TT Vineyards. Jinnie foresaw both eventually becoming divisions, but that was a long way in the future. Earlier in her report, Jinnie had suggested moving Bearcat Catering from the Fast Food Division to under Miranda’s TT Events. It was really the only other business in the Group it was anything like, but it had to report somewhere. She was happy with progress and wanted to report so to the board. Jorja and Sebastian had immediately gelled as a team. On top of the contracts for the cricket stadium and the private hospital, they had also secured the car importers’ canteen, and following Keith getting the order for the refurbishment of Banks Brewery’s staff canteen, they had secured the contract to run it.
Four contracts weren’t a vast number, and none were huge, but it was better than Jinnie had reckoned on in the seven months the business had existed. With the addition of an Events business, it had gained a bit more clout, and Jinnie was very hopeful the new company was going to make money in its first year of operation, something she had only dreamed about. She wondered if it was time to start expanding to other islands. Jorja had been asked to tender for the catering contract for supplying all the food on an oil rig off Trinidad. Jorja and Sebastian were more than a little reluctant to bid for this job, but Jinnie was enthusiastic. She saw it as a way into the offshore catering world, which was vast, and the oil and gas companies were famous for feeding their staff excellent food. She wanted the board to back a bid that could be a loss leader.
The other new project Jinnie wanted to mention in her ‘Review’, TT Vineyards, also fell under Trattoria Trevi Limited, but unlike Bearcat Catering, it was not making any money, only spending it. TT Vineyards’ French operation was turning a small profit. The company had purchased additional vineyards local to the Bordeaux vineyard, and that autumn had produced extra wine, most of which had been sold at the same profit point they sold to dealers and to Trattoria Trevi. They were selling it in their restaurants and making an excellent profit. So Jinnie considered the money spent on additional vines and investment in the French part of TT Vineyards a long-term investment.
But it was the English vineyard project she really wanted to talk to the board about. On paper it was costing a lot of money, but only a few days ago Jinnie had visited the vineyard in West Sussex and had been impressed. Since planning permission had been granted back in June, construction work had been rapid. The short private road from the mini roundabout they had paid for to the new car park had gone in quickly, opening up access to the site. Charles had walked the large estate with the viticulturist, sorting out the best places to plant the various types of grape they intended to grow, mainly Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunière. All three could be used individually or blended to produce sparkling wine.
The first buildings were up. They had gone for steel-framed buildings for speed and cheapness. The programme had called for the large event centre to be finished first, as it could be used as soon as it was finished. Next to come was the visitor centre, complete with restaurant. The winery would not be needed until grapes were harvested, and Charles had warned that vines planted in November and December would produce virtually nothing in the following autumn, spending the first year mostly establishing their root system. So, although the steel frames for the winery, warehouses and offices were up and roofs were in place, as yet they had no sides and no equipment.
Miranda had met Jinnie on site and was delighted with the new permanent home of TT Events. The main building had been finished with block cavity walls that were timber-clad externally and looked like an old barn. An attached building housed a modern kitchen, and the boiler house was designed to supply all heating required for the events centre, visitor centre, shop, restaurant, offices, winery and warehouses. Belinda had only just finished fitting out the events centre, and her team were moving on to the visitor centre and restaurant, which were planned to open in the spring.
The customers entered the events centre via a reception area and cloakroom, and the large space was fully reconfigurable with movable walls so that they could offer spaces for any number from 20 to 650. Miranda had some offices at the back of what she was already calling ‘the barn’ and had computers linked to the TT SuperBurger network. In discussions with Nigel, they had decided that it wasn’t worth installing servers yet but to run via the Construction Division computer room, where her booking and accounts software already ran. They would be reviewed when businesses were nearer ready. Until then, it was sufficient to run as nodes on the Crawley network.
The movable walls had been installed so that there was always a 400-person space available, and it included a dais and a large bar. All areas accessed ladies’ and gents’ toilets. Seeing the bar was stocked, the movable walls were all pushed back, the room was filled with round tables, each with 10 chairs, and fairy lights and Christmas decorations were going up. Jinnie had asked Miranda, “When is your first party?” “Monday the third,” she replied. “I took a big chance on everything being ready on programme. We started selling this back in July, just after we saw the detailed plans and Mum’s programme. She said her fit-out would be done by the beginning of December, provided the other contractors were on time. Well, with her running the project on behalf of TT Vineyards, I believed her. So, I didn’t take up the option on our usual vineyard and put all my eggs in one basket on this place.”
“It didn’t give me much time to get in, but as you know, Mum handed over a week early. This has meant I could stretch my programme a bit. As you can see, we will be ready, but it has given me a chance to induct new employees. Not that there are a lot of new employees, most of the people we are using have come over from the old vineyard.” Jinnie had asked, “How’s sales doing?” “Superbly,” Miranda had replied. “We have sold out the opening night and nearly all Friday and Saturday nights. We have a few mid-week tables free, but we seem to have tapped into a slightly different local market as well as retaining many of our old customers. On the first night, we have a big party from the HMRC offices in Worthing, something I didn’t know existed.” Jinnie had said, “Well, you better get the VAT right then.”
Jinnie did a quick back-of-a-fag-packet calculation. £32 per person × 650 people = £20,800 per night, × six nights a week × four weeks came to very nearly half a million in turnover. This was for one party venue, without taking into account bar takings, and from taking her DKL office staff to a party most years, she knew this to be considerable. But Miranda had told her they had 10 venues this year, and several, like the XL in London, were bigger than West Sussex. This year, some had graduated from just dodgems to full-blown funfairs. Jinnie gave up her calculations. It was getting too difficult, but she had another note to add to her Scribe.
***
Jinnie left the board meeting with a smile on her face. It couldn’t have gone better. The divisional reports had, without exception, been upbeat, and Brian’s financial report was spectacular. The board had quickly approved the building of the new luxury wing at the Ennios Miami. Jinnie’s report had gone down well, and she had taken a lot of questions on the winery/vineyard/events project. It had been agreed to see if the restaurant/visitors’ centre could be advanced and tractor-pulled carriages introduced early to show the vine planting process. The suggestion to move the Caribbean Events business to under Miranda had been quickly agreed, and to move Artisan Donuts under Brooke had met with her approval, as she wanted to test selling them through the UK sandwich shops.
The board had voted on combining the Aunty JoJo’s businesses into a new division, and it had been passed with only two votes against. So Legal was to organise the paperwork, and Monica was to be promoted to the TT SuperBurger Group Holdings board as CEO of Aunty JoJo’s (Worldwide). The offices in Tampa were to be the world headquarters for Aunty JoJo’s. Jinnie had a note on her Scribe to talk to Monica to tell her what had been decided and to start thinking about taking another floor.
Rick had been authorised to look for a city centre hotel in any one of his preferred cities, but to proceed with a purchase the project would need final board approval. Trattoria Trevi and DKL were going to look at moving into Europe. The first thought was probably France, where there was already a business, and the country had a reputation for fine dining. Jinnie had questioned where in France they were thinking of looking, because Paris looked to be a very hard market to break into.
Alberto and Clive looked at each other and eventually Clive said, “I must admit that when we settled on France, I immediately thought of Paris. Is there somewhere you think might be better?” Jinnie replied, “If you were going to start a classy restaurant business in Britain, would you open the first one in one of the big cities like London or Manchester? I wouldn’t, because the overheads would be terrible—higher rents, higher wages, higher council tax. OK, there might be more tourists, but I would look for somewhere with lower rents, lower wages, hopefully lower council taxes but still lots of tourists. In Britain, I would look at York or Bournemouth first, then perhaps Brighton. Get the business established and known before I was tempted into opening in one of the bigger cities. I think I would start in Bordeaux or Strasbourg, then Nice, Toulouse and maybe Lyon before Paris.” “OK,” said Alberto, “let’s look at Bordeaux first, it is at least close to our vineyard.”
Jinnie had said, “Now you have me thinking, could we open a high-class restaurant at the vineyard? We wouldn’t have to pay a fortune in rent or local taxes, and we could offer the very best of our own wines. Maybe we shouldn’t use the Trattoria Trevi name in France, perhaps invent something a little more French. How about Epicurean Bistro?” “I like the idea,” said Clive, “we would have to be careful to ensure the name isn’t already a registered trademark.”
***
Jinnie got to the barrier at the end of the road and was stopped by George, who was about to wave her through when she called him over. “Are you on the shift that finishes at 4 this afternoon?” she asked. “That’s right,” replied George. “Well, I’ve had a good day, so I’m going to order in from DKL tonight, and I fancy Italian. Alberto says they have secured a supply of veal shanks, and we should try Ossobuco alla Milanese. Would you and Izzy like to join us? It will save you cooking.” “Thanks, I’d like that,” said George, “but can you check with Izzy? She might have planned something that won’t keep till tomorrow.”
The twins were delighted when Jinnie told them that Izzy and George were eating with them that evening. They rather liked him, and he was always ready to join in with them, even if he was always telling them tales. Like when he had told them he and Izzy were going to the palace for tea with the King and Queen. But they saw him on the TV being presented with a medal and challenged him when he came home. He told them that after the presentation, they had all had tea, sandwiches and cakes with the King and Queen, and their Mummy said that was what normally happened. Izzy told them the Queen had seen them on the TV when the helicopter had been lifted over Uncle Nigel’s house and had been very impressed.
***
George said, “I must agree with Alberto, Ossobuco alla Milanese is fabulous. I really enjoyed that meal.” Jinnie smiled and said, “It was rather good, wasn’t it. That’s one to remember for the future. Did you like it, kids?” “We did,” said Willie. “Can you get it at Uncle Alberto’s restaurant?” “Sometimes,” replied Jinnie. “He can’t always get the necessary cut of meat, and it is expensive. He puts it on the menu whenever he can.” “Good,” said Millie. “We might have it instead of Spaghetti Bolognese sometimes.” “You two have expensive tastes,” said Paolo.
Over coffee, George said, “I have a bit of special news for you all. I got called in today by the Chief Superintendent in Borehamwood. I was a bit worried, as he runs a big area and is basically nearly God. I wondered if I had done something wrong, but he gave me a cup of coffee and made small talk. Anyway, it seems that the King liked me when we talked after I was presented with the PGM, and he has requested I join the Royalty Protection Group of SO14. Apparently, the Queen said if I was good enough to save Sir Nigel and Jinnie’s children, then I was good enough for the Royal Family.”
“Well, I start next week,” George continued. “I have a training week first, and then I’ll be learning the ropes and my way around the Palace for a bit before I’m trusted to be Close Protection and to guard the King and Queen. First, it is around the Palace on things like garden parties, investitures, receptions, then Windsor, Sandringham and Balmoral. I will get to do domestic trips and finally overseas trips. I will become a detective and always have to carry a pistol. But it’s more money and allowances, including a clothing allowance, as I must wear a dark suit.”
Willie looked a bit distraught and asked, “Does that mean that you and Izzy will be moving?” “Not at all,” replied George. “I will be commuting into London just like your Daddy, but I’ll be working some funny hours, a bit like now, and I might be away for weeks at a time when the King goes on a foreign visit. But I will get extra time off when I come home. Oh, and I remembered to say I was booked off at Christmas to go on a Christmas cruise with you all, and that is going to be honoured. But I might have to fly up to Balmoral as soon as we get back.”
“What’s Balmoral?” asked Millie. Izzy answered, saying, “It’s the King and Queen’s home in Scotland. There are a number of houses on a big estate, including a castle. The Royal Family have owned it for hundreds of years. They usually all go there at Christmas.” “Like we go on a cruise,” said Willie. “That’s right,” said Izzy. “But they have several other homes. They have Windsor Castle, and they have the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. I think the King and Queen like Sandringham best. It’s a huge place in the countryside near the sea with woods and farms. I understand they like to be there because it’s quiet and they don’t have lots of royal appointments with foreign heads of state to worry about. They go there for the summer school holidays.” “Just like we go to the house in Barbados,” said Willie. “Yes,” said Jinnie. “But Sandringham is enormous. I understand there is even a sawmill where they cut up trees from the estate. We only have a big garden.” “Do they have a swimming pool?” asked Millie.
In Chapter 2 – Arvia
© WorthingGooner 2025
