Eleanor Hamilton-English, Carol-Ann Hamilton and Deslyn Hamilton are among the many enterprising examples of emerging Guyanese who are embracing business challenges in a local private sector that is becoming increasingly dominated by small and medium-sized businesses. The three sisters own and operate the Brown Bag Delhi one of several food outlets at the City Mall.
The Brown Bag Delhi marks the realization of a long-held ambition on the part of the Hamilton sisters to convert the culinary talents acquired from their mother into a thriving commercial venture.
They have set their sights, they say, on inculcating healthy eating habits into ordinary urban people by operating a facility that is accessible to the throngs who flock the City Mall every day, particularly at lunchtime.
The Hamilton sisters have turned their attention and talents to business, belatedly, several years after pursuing separate professional careers. The eldest, Eleanor, worked for several years at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri. Carol-Ann, the second sibling left the teaching profession where she served in both the public and private school systems for more than fifteen years.
Deslyn, the youngest, still retains her own job at the airport but is also seized with the enthusiasm of being an equal partner in a thriving food business.
The sizeable investment in the new food enterprise comes from the savings of the Hamilton sisters and despite the appearance of a thriving establishment they are yet to see any meaningful returns from their venture. Patience, they say, has to be the key to their success.
When Stabroek Business stopped by the Brown Bag Delhi earlier this week to find out ‘how business was going’ the mid-day crowd had already gathered on the ground floor of the City Mall in search of a lunchtime snack. The Brown Bag Delhi has secured its own clientele, ‘weight-watchers’ and health-food adherents attracted to the assorted salads and grilled meats on offer. Carol-Ann, the agreed spokesperson for the sisters believes that the City Mall has opened up ‘new and enterprising possibilities’ for growing businesses. The Mall she says, is popular with people of all walks of life.
The location also fits in well the sisters’ ‘vision’ of offering a health foods haven. What they seek, Carol-Ann told Stabroek Business, is to introduce a new dimension both to public eating habits and to service standards in the food industry. And with Guyana currently playing host to visitors for the Cricket World Cup Carol-Ann says that the food industry has both a special opportunity and an important responsibility to demonstrate that Guyana can rise to an acceptable standard of customer service. “We believe that the food business ought to be integral to the more important issue of ensuring that people eat well. At the same time eating well ought to be affordable,” Carol-Ann told Stabroek Business.
In the hectic environment of the City Mall the Brown Bag appears to have attained admirable service standards, a quality that is evidently linked to the professional experiences of the Hamilton sisters in other areas of public life. Both Eleanor and Carol-Ann believe that their earlier experiences in the aviation and education sectors respectively, have equipped them to function in an industry that continues to suffer from less than acceptable service standards.
They have sought to provide their business with a competitive edge by implementing their own training regime for the Brown Bag’s six staff members. It shows. The staff of the Delhi appear to have been rigorously oriented in the age-old service sector principle that ‘the customer comes first.’ Still, one of the Hamilton trio, mostly Carol-Ann, never seems to be far away from the counter, serving customers or else casting a beady eye over the ‘finer points’ of food presentation and service standards.
Eleanor believes that while the local service sector still has some distance to travel in its journey to an acceptable level of customer service the City Mall, with its openness and its wide cross-section of visitors, provides the ideal training ground for businesses seeking to raise standards in customer service. “We at the Brown Bag Delhi believe that the public ought to be allowed to grow accustomed to high standards of service. We believe that businesses that operate in an environment such as this have the opportunity to help break new ground in service standards.”
The Hamiltons’ preoccupation with the food business extends into a keenness to offer the public an even wider range of their own home-made delicacies. Eleanor believes that it will take time to introduce to Brown Bag’s patrons the range of choices already advertised on the facility’s menu board but which, she says, they have decided not to offer at this time.
Most of the food preparation is done at the Mall and the Brown Bag Delhi starts its day at around 8:hrs. The Hamilton sisters operate their own shift regime that apportions responsibilities for shopping and facility supervision equally. They admit that their pursuits in business mark a radical change from the routine of being employed persons but concede that as owners of the Brown Bag Delhi they are afforded the opportunity of pursuing what has been a lifelong dream.
