Roslyn Car­ring­ton

"I be­lieve in liv­ing life to the fullest. If you want to do some­thing, do it; just try not to hurt peo­ple along the way. En­joy friends and fam­i­ly and love the peo­ple around you." Rose­marie Hezeki­ah, known to every­one as Ros­es, glows in the sun­light stream­ing through the plan­ta­tion house-styled win­dows of Veni Mang&ea­cute;. The culi­nary land­mark is on many for­eign­ers' must-try list be­cause of its au­then­tic­i­ty, warmth and sim­plic­i­ty. It's al­so a draw for home-grown lovers of lo­cal cui­sine. Hezeki­ah found­ed the charm­ing lit­tle restau­rant in 1980 with her beloved sis­ter, the late Allyson Hen­nessy, in Luc­know Street in St. James. When the eatery out­grew its space in 1996, they packed up moved to Ari­api­ta Av­enue. "Peo­ple thought we were crazy. We were the on­ly busi­ness here oth­er than Car­val­ho's cafe and the Mas Camp Pub." The as­tute busi­ness­woman proved to have near-psy­chic abil­i­ties, pre­dict­ing the boom­ing, bustling hive that The Av­enue was to be­come. "We kept the aes­thet­ic of the place," Hezeki­ah says, wav­ing her arm to en­com­pass the eclec­tic mix­ture of old pho­tos, post­cards, carv­ings and art, all in hum­ming-bird colours. "Allyson and I want­ed to bring a Caribbean feel to our busi­ness. We have so much to of­fer in terms of our cul­ture, our en­er­gy, our mu­sic. Part of what we brought to Veni Mang&ea­cute; is an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of what we have."

Promi­nent­ly fea­tured are pho­tos of Allyson be­ing Allyson: flam­boy­ant, ra­di­ant, and lov­ing life. For Hezeki­ah, Allyson's pres­ence per­vades every nook and cran­ny of the lit­tle restau­rant, as if small parts of her essence re­main in the art and trim­mings she hand-chose her­self. But her sis­ter's loss still cuts deep. "It's the worst thing that ever hap­pened to me," she says. "We were each oth­er's friend." Hezeki­ah has just a few Veni Mang&ea­cute; busi­ness cards left, and these bear both sis­ters' names. She ad­mits that she is re­luc­tant to print new ones with Allyson's name re­moved. "I think I'll just reprint and leave hers on there," she de­cides, and set­tling that is­sue seems to bring her a mea­sure of so­lace. Hezeki­ah's love of lo­cal cul­ture in­forms al­most every as­pect of her life, and every busi­ness ven­ture she has em­barked up­on. She joined with busi­ness part­ners to cre­ate Rit­u­als Mu­sic, a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny that helped launch the ca­reers of many artistes, in­clud­ing Broth­er Re­sis­tance, 3 Canal, Char­lene Boodram, Mun­gal Patasar and Kin­dred. Though Rit­u­als is no longer ac­tive, it has been re­placed by Trinidad­Tunes.com, where Caribbean mu­sic ad­dicts can legal­ly down­load their fix.

She was al­so a pi­o­neer of the all-in­clu­sive fete phe­nom­e­non. "In about 1980, our first Veni Mang&ea­cute; all-in­clu­sive cost $65, and you got drinks, a band and a DJ." In her spare time, she throws her­self in­to sport and mu­sic, es­pe­cial­ly so­ca, rap­so and pan. "Des­pers is our band." She's a dri­ving force in pro­mot­ing lo­cal arts, and is a found­ing mem­ber of the Caribbean Net­work of Pro­duc­ers and Per­form­ers of the Arts. A vig­or­ous so­cial con­science has al­so led Hezeki­ah to make her pres­ence felt in de­vel­op­men­tal and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive projects, such as the AIDS Foun­da­tion and Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion. When she dis­cov­ered that one of her restau­rant staff was in an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship, and des­per­ate­ly need­ed to hide from a vi­o­lent hus­band, she teamed with Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att and oth­er com­mit­tee mem­bers to cre­ate the Samaan Shel­ter. They found her a house with­out elec­tric­i­ty or run­ning wa­ter, but to the grate­ful woman and her chil­dren, it was sanc­tu­ary.

The loss of Hezeki­ah's sis­ter caused her to re­flect on her fu­ture, in­clud­ing whether she want­ed to con­tin­ue with their restau­rant. "I re­alised it has al­ways been and con­tin­ues to be my pas­sion. I de­cid­ed that Veni Mang&ea­cute; must go on, but we need­ed to ex­pand our ser­vice. I in­tro­duced our take away soup out­let, Veni Soup, lo­cat­ed down­stairs." Brim­ming with grat­i­tude for the re­spect and sup­port of her moth­er and sis­ters, Hezeki­ah vows to live up to the great ex­pec­ta­tions of those who have in­spired her. She's work­ing on a book on Veni Mang&ea­cute;. "This won't be just an­oth­er cook book, but a book ??that re­flects our 31 years of ex­is­tence: the food, the art and cul­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the lega­cy that Allyson has left us and the many friends and per­son­al­i­ties who are so much a part of Veni Mang&ea­cute;. Of course it will be in the typ­i­cal Veni style - to­tal­ly Caribbean!" So, the show goes on. To the re­lief of food and cul­ture lovers every­where, Veni-and Ros­es Hezeki­ah-will con­tin­ue to in­fuse The Av­enue with their verve and spir­it. "My sis­ter said I was the peren­ni­al en­tre­pre­neur, be­cause I'm al­ways in­to some­thing. I be­lieve if you have a good idea, go for it. See what you think is ex­cit­ing and try it. Some have worked and some haven't, but I know in my heart I have tried."