RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Jineal Chich­ester was halfway across the At­lantic, stand­ing aboard an air­craft car­ri­er bound for Africa as a young naval of­fi­cer in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard, when a sin­gle ques­tion changed the course of her life.

“What are you do­ing here?”

The an­swer sur­prised her.

It was not the sea she was think­ing about, nor the mil­i­tary ca­reer she had worked hard to build af­ter earn­ing a dou­ble ma­jor in His­to­ry and Psy­chol­o­gy at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

It was cheese­cake.

“I re­alised then that cheese­cake was my love,” Chich­ester re­called. “I de­cid­ed, you know what, the sky’s the lim­it. Let me push the lim­it and do some­thing dif­fer­ent.”

To­day, that de­ci­sion has trans­formed a small uni­ver­si­ty side hus­tle in­to Cheese­cake House, one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s best-known dessert brands, boast­ing an as­ton­ish­ing 186 flavours in­spired by lo­cal fruits and cul­ture.

On Thurs­day, Chich­ester will cel­e­brate World Cheese­cake Day by thank­ing the loy­al cus­tomers who have stood with her through­out the jour­ney.

Her sto­ry, how­ev­er, be­gan long be­fore the busi­ness had a name.

From text­books to cheese­cakes

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Chich­ester said that while study­ing at The UWI, she need­ed mon­ey to buy text­books.

Com­ing from a fam­i­ly of chefs, she had al­ways been sur­round­ed by bak­ing, so she de­cid­ed to bake and sell cheese­cakes.

“I start­ed the cheese­cake busi­ness dri­ving around my neigh­bour­hood sell­ing cakes, go­ing on­to cam­pus and talk­ing to my lec­tur­ers. My first ex­pe­ri­ence in en­tre­pre­neur­ship was ac­tu­al­ly on cam­pus sell­ing cheese­cakes,” she re­called.

Af­ter grad­u­at­ing, Chich­ester joined the Coast Guard and pur­sued her dream of be­com­ing a naval of­fi­cer.

While she en­joyed mil­i­tary life, Chich­ester said that when­ev­er she had free time, she found her­self in the ship’s gal­ley help­ing to make cheese­cakes.

“I couldn’t tell any­body that I was help­ing them make cheese­cake be­cause I was a young of­fi­cer and wasn’t re­al­ly sup­posed to be do­ing that,” she said with a laugh.

The ex­pe­ri­ence con­vinced her that bak­ing, rather than the mil­i­tary, was where her fu­ture lay.

Re­turn­ing home, she reg­is­tered the busi­ness and grad­u­al­ly built Cheese­cake House from her own home.

“Every­body start­ed call­ing my home Cheese­cake House be­fore it was even of­fi­cial­ly reg­is­tered be­cause every­body knew they could come here and get cheese­cake,” she ex­plained.

Week­ends were spent sell­ing at mar­kets and events while build­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for birth­day cakes, an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions and desserts for spe­cial oc­ca­sions.

When set­backs

be­come op­por­tu­ni­ties

But Chich­ester’s jour­ney was not with­out set­backs.

While op­er­at­ing a food cart at Cross Cross­ing, San Fer­nan­do, a ve­hi­cle crashed in­to it, de­stroy­ing the busi­ness.

In­stead of walk­ing away, Chich­ester chose to fo­cus en­tire­ly on the one prod­uct cus­tomers kept ask­ing for.

“Every­body want­ed the cheese­cake any­how, so I pushed the cheese­cake to the front.”

That de­ci­sion helped shape the busi­ness in­to what it is to­day.

Chich­ester said that un­like tra­di­tion­al cheese­cake mak­ers, she re­fused to lim­it her­self to fa­mil­iar straw­ber­ry or cher­ry top­pings.

As a child, she had vis­it­ed New York and mar­velled at the dozens of flavours of­fered at the fa­mous Ju­nior’s restau­rant.

When she re­turned home, she re­alised Trinidad and To­ba­go’s own pro­duce of­fered even greater pos­si­bil­i­ties.

“We have fruits in Trinidad that are not be­ing show­cased. Why don’t I put that in a cheese­cake?”

The ex­per­i­ments be­gan.

Man­go and pas­sion fruit came first, fol­lowed by bar­ba­dine, sour­sop, pump­kin spice, av­o­ca­do paired with white choco­late and co­conut blend­ed with choco­late.

“Every fruit we have, I have com­bined it and made it in­to a cheese­cake,” she said. “As crazy as it might sound, it works.”

To­day, the menu has ex­pand­ed to 186 flavours.

When­ev­er pos­si­ble, Chich­ester said, she sources lo­cal prod­ucts, in­clud­ing Trinida­di­an choco­late.

A slice for every­one

Recog­nis­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety, Chich­ester said she want­ed every­one to en­joy her desserts, re­gard­less of di­etary re­stric­tions or re­li­gious be­liefs.

That think­ing led Cheese­cake House to de­vel­op egg­less recipes be­fore in­tro­duc­ing sug­ar-free and gluten-free op­tions, al­low­ing cus­tomers with dif­fer­ent di­etary needs to en­joy the desserts.

She even pays close at­ten­tion to in­gre­di­ents that many cus­tomers may nev­er think about.

“We en­sure the vanil­la ex­tract doesn’t have al­co­hol in it so my Mus­lim cus­tomers could en­joy it as well. My Hin­du cus­tomers could en­joy it be­cause they don’t have the eggs.”

For cus­tomers who wor­ry about desserts and healthy liv­ing, Chich­ester en­cour­ages mod­er­a­tion rather than guilt.

“Every­body de­serves, even if it’s just for five min­utes, a mo­ment of bliss.”

She be­lieves qual­i­ty mat­ters more than quan­ti­ty.

“If you’re go­ing to en­joy dessert, make it some­thing tru­ly worth en­joy­ing.”

And for Chich­ester, that phi­los­o­phy ex­tends be­yond the cheese­cake it­self.

What be­gan as a way to pay for uni­ver­si­ty text­books has be­come a busi­ness built on cre­ativ­i­ty, re­silience and a dis­tinct­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go flavour.

From a Coast Guard ship cross­ing the At­lantic to a kitchen filled with the aro­ma of fresh­ly baked cheese­cake, Chich­ester has found her call­ing, and turned it in­to 186 dif­fer­ent rea­sons for cus­tomers to in­dulge.