Small Business Focus: Brown Sugar Catering
− self-taught cook making strides in hospitality industry
By Natasha Smith
DPI, Guyana, Tuesday, June 4, 2019
“I remember the first time I fried bake it was just flat,” were the sentiments of Samantha Francine Baker who owns and operates the Brown Sugar Restaurant and Catering at Ogle Front Road, East Coast of Demerara.
Baker has a warm and friendly demeanour and always has a smile, essential traits in the hospitality industry. This is much appreciated by her customers who enter her establishment as early as 05:00hrs daily, for breakfast which is served with porridge, coffee or local fruit juice.
Every day is a busy day in the kitchen for this mother of one, whose daily routine starts as early as 03:00hrs.
“Our business is basically food, we deal with food on a large scale and a small scale, we start with breakfast from in the morning, with our usual bake and salt fish, puri and curry, roti and curry, our pastries, pinwheel, egg ball, cassava ball, pholourie… in the morning,” she told the Department of Public Information (DPI).
‘Brown Sugar’ also caters for lunch, “every day we have a different menu, we change our menu but, every single day we cook curry… because as you know Guyanese love curry, Guyanese love cook-up, Guyanese love fried rice, so every day we have those three… but you know it varies throughout the day,” Baker explained.
The businesswoman cheerfully recounted that she was always in love with cooking, a skill she acquired up from her parents and grandparents, who always loved cooking. A further boost to her passion was acquired when she was 13 years old and got the opportunity to understudy as an intern at the Woodbine Hotel.
“When they put me in the Kitchen with the older folks… from then I got this vision that, you know what?… I’m gonna own my own business, I’m gonna get a restaurant and I’m gonna name it Brown Sugar and that’s where it all started, a teenager thirteen years old.”
Before starting her business, Baker was the employee of an establishment in Lodge, Georgetown, however, when she calculated the amount of money she paid for transportation to get to and from home it was not “paying off”.
A decision was made that if she could do it for people, she could do it for herself. One day, fifteen years ago, she said, “I started the first day with ten food, and I go around to some of my friends that I would usually help when they have party or function and ask them if they would take from me and they said yes.”
“The first day, I go down with 10, and then as people taste, I started going down with 15 then 20 then 25. I actually started going down with a bus the first day – I started going down with a bag on a bus, by the second week. I started taking a taxi – it was so much food I started cooking. From there, it continued to pick up now I’m employing people,” Baker proudly said.
Interestingly, she never received much formal training in cooking as she is self-taught and open-minded. “I didn’t get much training in this, I basically went to Carnegie and did a crash course, everything I know I basically read and practiced… I taught myself, use Google, and ask a lot of questions. People even came to work with me and actually taught me because some of these things I didn’t know to make… I remember the first time I fried bake it was just flat, I didn’t know how to get it raised, and there was somebody working with me and she told me, you know what?… You putting too much sugar in this bake, you need to put some more yeast, and she actually come and teach me how to make it and now I’m teaching people how to make the bake.”
Baker believes that despite her busy schedule, family is important, so some holidays, she takes time out to visit some of the beautiful spots in Guyana and encourages others to do the same.
“If you have a talent and a gift, you try to cultivate it, you may have a certificate or a university degree, but then you have a gift and you are passionate about that gift, just make sure that you cultivate it… you may not be able to further your education, but you have access to the internet, utilise whatever information is available to you about it and try to help yourself and be opened, because people come in and give advice, you filter it and know what will work for you and what would not work for you,” she advised.
‘Brown Sugar’ wholesales and retails food and pastries and also caters for various activities, such as weddings and other functions.
Samantha Baker can be contacted directly on telephone numbers 592-664-2732, 592-628-5590 or 592-222-5042.
Images: Anil Seelall and Marceano Narine