Car­ol Quash

Man­disa Box­ill has tak­en many chances on her­self and her abil­i­ties. She has act­ed, tu­tored math, bar­tend­ed, done food and drinks re­views, and com­pet­ed as a body­builder. This time around she is putting her mon­ey where her mouth is, and is adding busi­ness own­er to her port­fo­lio.

The 37-year-old for­mer Bon Air Gar­dens res­i­dent is ex­tend­ing her reach be­yond her po­si­tion in man­age­ment at the New York restau­rant, 54 Be­low. On Ju­ly 25 she will launch her own event plan­ning busi­ness, Trin­ter­tain­ment Group LLC, at a soiree at the Brook­lyn Burj, on At­lantic Av­enue.

“So think about the Burj Khal­i­fa in Dubai. The venue re­al­ly gives that type of vibe,” with a Caribbean flavour.”

Box­ill is well qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try – a tra­jec­to­ry she be­lieves start­ed when she was em­ployed at An­gos­tu­ra be­fore leav­ing T&T to set­tle in the US 15 years ago.

“Trin­ter­tain­ment, as the name im­plies, is an events plan­ning com­pa­ny and a way for me to bring my iden­ti­ty to what I’m do­ing al­ready. I spent 14 years work­ing at this restau­rant and worked my way from the ground up. When I start­ed I was a bus and a food run­ner, and over the years I was pro­mot­ed and now I’m the gen­er­al man­ag­er. So I’m in charge of all of the food and bev­er­age op­er­a­tions.”

And al­though she works full-time at the restau­rant, she doesn’t see Trin­ter­tain­ment as a side ven­ture, as she ded­i­cates all of her free time to it, with the goal of it be­com­ing her main source of in­come. Box­ill told Busi­ness Guardian it was an in­vest­ment made from a tax re­turn pay­out she col­lect­ed. She pon­dered on how she could put the mon­ey to good use, and de­cid­ed to pump it in­to a ven­ture that was a while in the mak­ing. The de­lay in start­ing, she ex­plained, was part­ly fi­nan­cial, but main­ly fear of the un­known.

“If I do this, will it be suc­cess­ful? Am I ready to han­dle the hur­dles? So that has kind of been hold­ing me back. But I said to my­self, ‘Okay, when I get this tax re­turn I will take this mon­ey and put it in­to in­vest­ing in this busi­ness.’”

Over the years, in ad­di­tion to her dai­ly du­ties, Box­ill has ex­e­cut­ed wed­dings re­cep­tions, birth­day par­ties, re­tire­ment par­ties, ba­by show­ers, among oth­er events at the restau­rant. And she has en­joyed do­ing it. She said in light of all the post-COVID-19 job loss­es, she was de­ter­mined to find an­oth­er stream of in­come, just in case.

“I won­dered what I could do now to se­cure my fu­ture in a bet­ter way, and that’s where this came from.”

And be­cause she has no busi­ness part­ners, the fi­nan­cial bur­den falls on her to source and pay for every­thing re­lat­ed to an event – seat­ing for the dif­fer­ent sec­tions at the event, rental of the DJ equip­ment, the red car­pet steps and flower walls for pho­to ops, stock for the bar, and the hir­ing of staff – bar­tenders, ser­vice peo­ple and se­cu­ri­ty.

“The good thing about this busi­ness is that I know how to ac­cess all that stuff be­cause I have been do­ing it for years.”

She is very op­ti­mistic at the suc­cess of the event, but ad­mits she is ner­vous be­cause this time the stakes are much high­er – it’s her mon­ey and her name out there.

“But I def­i­nite­ly be­lieve I can do it. I’ve al­ready put so many feel­ers out there and I have so many peo­ple who are on board; so many peo­ple want­i­ng to buy tick­ets. I have peo­ple want­i­ng to in­vest. Once this first event launch­es, I plan on do­ing the next event in Sep­tem­ber and then from there, month­ly.”

Trin­ter­tain­ment was reg­is­tered in 2024, but the con­ver­sa­tion start­ed long be­fore that among her and her col­leagues at 54.

“Be­cause we knew the in­ner work­ings of food and bev­er­age and hos­pi­tal­i­ty, and then go­ing to oth­er events and see­ing where peo­ple fall short, we al­ways knew we could do this so much bet­ter. So that is ba­si­cal­ly the thought process be­hind Trin­ter­tain­ment – mar­ry­ing food, bev­er­age and hos­pi­tal­i­ty. But al­so en­ter­tain­ment with­in the Trinidad and Caribbean cul­ture in New York City.”

She said there are plans to ex­pand to do­ing events in every state in the US.

Box­ill’s forte is dec­o­ra­tions and bev­er­ages, so she will take charge of these el­e­ments at all her events. For the food and desserts, she will col­lab­o­rate with oth­er ser­vice providers.

“I like to cre­ate clas­sic cock­tails with a Caribbean twist. So the ques­tion was how do we bring the Caribbean flavours in­to the clas­sic cock­tails that we know and love over here in New York City? So it’s kind of blend­ing the Caribbean iden­ti­ty with things that are al­ready es­tab­lished.”

Her drinks will com­prise the dif­fer­ent flavours that come out of the re­gion.

“So we have, for ex­am­ple, sor­rel mo­ji­tos, sor­rel mar­gar­i­tas, spicy mar­gar­i­tas us­ing scotch bon­net pep­pers and sweet and salt prunes.”

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies grad­u­ate left the is­land with her Tri­ni vibe when she was 22, but the nos­tal­gia re­mained with her through­out the years.

“I still feel so home­sick, es­pe­cial­ly when I go to any event here. It is nev­er the same, even if it’s like Trinida­di­ans or Caribbean peo­ple throw­ing the event. I feel like peo­ple don’t re­al­ly cap­ture the essence of Trinidad and the par­ty scene in Trinidad; like there’s just a vibe that’s miss­ing.”

And this, she said, is what she wants to re­cap­ture through Trin­ter­tain­ment.

“I re­al­ly want to get back to that feel­ing that I used to have when I used to go to Zen and 51 De­grees. It was nev­er a dull mo­ment be­cause peo­ple used to just go out and have a great time.”