luxury locations issue 21

“look, as much as I enjoyed working with you, I found you unmanageable at the end”. And he was absolutely right. That’s when I knew I had to do it on my own because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I then opened Sheer Rocks at 29 years old. What have been the biggest highs and lows over the last 13 years? The first high was of course opening Sheer Rocks, although in a weird way I sort of missed the moment, never stopping to pinch myself. I woke up the day after we opened my dream restaurant and robotically went through my tasks, as if it was normal. I think that reflects both my level of focus at the time, as well as my youth and immaturity. I was able to really be present when we went from one restaurant to two in 2017, opening Catherine’s Café. It started to finally feel like there was momentum and growth in the company. One of the biggest lows was definitely the pandemic. It was the realisation that we couldn’t look after all of our team in that first year and we had to lay people off. I’d had many sleepless nights trying to work out how we were going to navigate things and it didn’t matter how I looked at the numbers or how many alternatives I considered, the only way the company was going to survive was if we laid off all the line staff. I just remember snapping out of this daze while running in the rain, about 20km from home, and crying my eyes out because there was no other solution. That was definitely a low. Being voted Best Restaurant in the Caribbean during the pandemic by the Caribbean Journal was a high. It was the third time Sheer Rocks had been voted but that time felt particularly special. Another was bringing all our staff back after the pandemic. Even seeing staff that didn’t come back move on to bigger and better things, opening their own businesses and being all right despite all the anguish and anxiety; everyone got through it. Other highs included, of course, opening Rokuni and our newest location, Roquita. The group’s most recent venture, a wine and tapas bar, opened in April in English Harbour.

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