The women down at the Breakfast Shed are dying. Their business I should say, more accurately. Their transition from port kitchen to banker’s row diner complete with a view of the Gulf of Paria, has not gone well. We have all heard the retail mantra; “Location, location, location”. On the surface the location looks better than the original one. But moving 200 yards away from port workers, their core market, may have been a fatal flaw. (It’s a similar predicament that Horse Racing has struggled with since moving to Arima)
In addition, a lot has changed since the breakfast shed was the sole purveyor of creole food fare. Now there are many more options of similar ilk with convenience trumping authenticity. There has been one other fundamental change in the Breakfast Shed. It used to be a Family. Now it’s more like the Food Court in the Mall; compere is now competition. This has changed the family spirit that pervaded. Eating there was like sitting in one big Indian Wedding, except it was mostly African women serving creole food.
How do they get back to the glory days or something resembling them? They need to acknowledge that their market has changed. They are now serving the Port of Spain worker and not the Port worker. They have to look at menu, price points, service (yes that word again!) and social media to tell their story. They also have to find a way back to having more of a cooperative system that could impact their cost of goods and their ability to speak as one.
In short, they need to enter the 21st century. And they also need to put back the poetry into the place.
