An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

At Take Five Health Bar Cafe on O’Con­nor Street in Wood­brook, the lunch crowd moves steadi­ly be­tween detox juices, salmon bowls, and tartines lay­ered high enough to stop cus­tomers mid-con­ver­sa­tion for pho­tographs.

The cafe of­fi­cial­ly opened in De­cem­ber, but the four friends be­hind the busi­ness, Richard Pur­cell, Giselle Don­awa-Pur­cell, Alana Lee Wo, and Dex­ter Si­mon, are al­ready think­ing be­yond the nov­el­ty stage that swal­lows many food ven­tures.

What they are build­ing is not sim­ply an­oth­er cafe with sal­ads and smooth­ies. The group be­lieves Take Five sits at the in­ter­sec­tion of food, well­ness, con­ve­nience, and lifestyle, an ap­proach they say be­came clear long be­fore the doors opened.

The idea emerged dur­ing a road trip with friends. Don­awa-Pur­cell re­called that one mem­ber of the group was gluten in­tol­er­ant, which meant every stop for food be­came a process of fig­ur­ing out what she could safe­ly eat.

Dur­ing one of those stops at a cafe in South Trinidad, the con­ver­sa­tion shift­ed.

“We said, ‘We could do this. We could run some­thing like this,’” Don­awa-Pur­cell re­count­ed dur­ing an in­ter­view with WE at the cafe. “But we al­ways knew we just didn’t want it to be a cafe. We al­ways knew we want­ed to pair it with not just food, but healthy food. And food for any di­etary re­stric­tion.”

The con­clu­sion was sim­ple: they be­lieved they could cre­ate some­thing bet­ter suit­ed to the lo­cal mar­ket.

Be­yond a well­ness trend

That think­ing now shapes al­most every as­pect of the busi­ness, from the in­gre­di­ents used in the kitchen to the wider ser­vices at­tached to the brand.

Si­mon, who al­so works in fit­ness and body trans­for­ma­tion coach­ing, be­lieves many busi­ness­es mis­use the la­bel “healthy food” with­out ex­am­in­ing what ac­tu­al­ly goes in­to the meals be­ing served.

“A lot of restau­rants say that they’re healthy. But what’s the mean­ing of healthy food re­al­ly?” he asked.

For Take Five, the fo­cus is on elim­i­nat­ing in­gre­di­ents many cus­tomers in­creas­ing­ly avoid, in­clud­ing dairy, lac­tose, and gluten, while still de­liv­er­ing flavour and pre­sen­ta­tion strong enough to com­pete with main­stream din­ing op­tions.

Si­mon ar­gued that many restau­rants sim­ply re­duce sug­ar or slight­ly ad­just por­tions and mar­ket the re­sult as healthy eat­ing. Take Five in­stead at­tempts to strip meals down to in­gre­di­ents it be­lieves sup­port long-term well­ness.

“We cut out the el­e­ments to­tal­ly and then brought the taste with it,” he ex­plained.

That phi­los­o­phy de­vel­oped while the own­ers were still wait­ing on ap­provals be­fore of­fi­cial­ly launch­ing the cafe. Rather than sit­ting idle, they moved in­to cater­ing and ex­ter­nal events to build aware­ness and gen­er­ate in­come.

Pur­cell said those ear­ly months helped them un­der­stand cus­tomer de­mand be­fore the phys­i­cal lo­ca­tion for­mal­ly opened.

Build­ing more than a cafe

Si­mon point­ed to what he sees as a glob­al shift in how peo­ple think about age­ing, ill­ness, and longevi­ty. Health, he ar­gued, is in­creas­ing­ly be­com­ing less of an op­tion and more of a ne­ces­si­ty for con­sumers.

“And it is go­ing to be­come more of a sta­ple in a per­son’s life to un­der­stand that there’s a non-ne­go­tiable re­quire­ment to eat healthy,” Si­mon said.

In­side the cafe, sev­er­al dish­es have al­ready be­come cus­tomer favourites.

Pur­cell said the Thai pho con­sis­tent­ly at­tracts first-time vis­i­tors, helped in part by so­cial me­dia im­ages show­ing broth be­ing poured dra­mat­i­cal­ly over the dish.

Salmon meals al­so re­main among the top sell­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause cus­tomers see them as rel­a­tive­ly af­ford­able giv­en the por­tion size and in­gre­di­ents.

Then there are the tartines, thick open-faced sand­wich­es that have be­come one of the most pho­tographed items on the menu.

“Peo­ple come for the tartines,” Pur­cell said with a laugh. “I keep say­ing I want to try some­thing else, but I keep or­der­ing the same thing.”

For Si­mon, how­ev­er, the food is on­ly one lay­er of the busi­ness.

“The ser­vice is not just here and go,” he said. “The ser­vice is here and goes in­to your life and sup­ports your life and your well-be­ing.”

Rather than po­si­tion­ing it­self sole­ly as a restau­rant, Take Five is build­ing a well­ness-fo­cused op­er­a­tion tied to con­ve­nience, health, and com­mu­ni­ty.

Stand-out dish

One of the cafe’s stand­out dish­es is the grilled salmon served with mixed red and white quinoa sal­ad and sautéed ex­ot­ic mush­rooms. The salmon is sea­soned with salt and black pep­per, then grilled for sev­en to 10 min­utes un­til flaky and ten­der.

The quinoa is cooked for about 15 to 18 min­utes be­fore be­ing tossed with five fine­ly minced pi­men­to pep­pers, three gar­lic cloves, a quar­ter cup of lemon juice, and a quar­ter cup of olive oil for a fresh Caribbean flavour.

On the side, the ex­ot­ic mush­rooms are sautéed in three to four ta­ble­spoons of olive oil with gar­lic and fresh thyme for about 10 to 15 min­utes un­til gold­en brown.