SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

On June 5, a unique culi­nary aro­ma, vi­brant pre­sen­ta­tions, and a spir­it­ed en­er­gy filled the FOX5 Wash­ing­ton DC tele­vi­sion stu­dio dur­ing its LI­ON Lunch Hour seg­ment (Like It Or Not), as Tri­ni-born Gillian de Souza made a guest ap­pear­ance. The seg­ment, ti­tled Cel­e­brate with Caribbean Cater­ers, was es­pe­cial­ly mean­ing­ful to her as it took place dur­ing Caribbean Amer­i­can Her­itage Month.

De Souza cap­ti­vat­ed the hosts with her en­er­gy and de­light­ed their palates with a menu that in­clud­ed her sig­na­ture pi­geon peas and rice, cilantro lime rice, mac­a­roni pie bites, bone­less chick­en, and fried plan­tain light­ly dust­ed with thyme or rose­mary—el­e­gant­ly served in cock­tail glass­es “for an el­e­vat­ed ex­pe­ri­ence”.

Al­so fea­tured were cham­pagne-in­fused pas­sion fruit mi­mosas, non-al­co­holic ca­lyp­so punch, bread pud­ding with rum sauce pre­sent­ed as a par­fait, and grilled salmon with gin­ger aioli—“sim­ply cooked but tak­en to next-lev­el flavour with se­cret sauces”.

The founder and di­rec­tor of Caribbean Cater­ers—a fine din­ing and full-ser­vice cater­ing com­pa­ny—de Souza proud­ly not­ed that she was born and raised in Trinidad, with fam­i­ly roots in Bar­ba­dos and Saint Lu­cia. She al­so took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to high­light the rich­ness of Trinidad’s peo­ple and cul­ture.

De Souza shared that her culi­nary ca­reer didn’t be­gin in the Unit­ed States. Her busi­ness jour­ney start­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go in the 1980s, when she opened a fine-din­ing veg­e­tar­i­an restau­rant af­ter notic­ing a lack of up­scale veg­e­tar­i­an op­tions, de­spite the coun­try’s large num­ber of Hin­dus, Mus­lims, and Chris­tians who ob­serve meat­less di­ets dur­ing re­li­gious pe­ri­ods.

“I nev­er ques­tioned whether I could do it or how I was go­ing to do it. I just did it,” she said. “Be­fore I knew it, my restau­rant had three lo­ca­tions.”

She re­called that din­ing out wasn’t com­mon—peo­ple most­ly cooked at home. Her restau­rants be­came pop­u­lar for spe­cial oc­ca­sions and re­li­gious hol­i­days when peo­ple need­ed con­ve­nient veg­e­tar­i­an meals. Things were go­ing well, but then the op­por­tu­ni­ty to mi­grate to the US arose.

Ar­riv­ing in the DMV area (DC, Mary­land, Vir­ginia), de Souza ini­tial­ly stepped away from food. “I looked at the restau­rant scene in DC and said, ‘This is noth­ing like home.’ The weath­er was a huge de­ter­rent. So, I did what most peo­ple do—I got a job.”

But fate in­ter­vened. While at­tend­ing an event, she met a for­mer cus­tomer—an am­bas­sador—who re­mem­bered her restau­rants and in­vit­ed her to pre­pare meals for pri­vate diplo­mat­ic gath­er­ings. Word spread, and soon she was cater­ing for oth­er am­bas­sadors and for­eign min­is­ters.

Torn be­tween a full-time job and grow­ing cater­ing de­mand, de Souza took the leap in 2001 and of­fi­cial­ly launched Caribbean Cater­ers. The path wasn’t easy. One of her ear­ly hur­dles was se­cur­ing a li­cenced com­mer­cial kitchen space. She ini­tial­ly op­er­at­ed from a church kitchen in Mont­gomery Coun­ty to meet re­quire­ments. Her first ded­i­cat­ed space came through a kitchen at an old Econo Lodge ho­tel in Gaithers­burg. But af­ter a few years, the coun­ty pur­chased the prop­er­ty for re­de­vel­op­ment, giv­ing her on­ly 30 days to va­cate.

“Through per­sis­tence and self-ad­vo­ca­cy, I dis­cov­ered and took ad­van­tage of re­lo­ca­tion as­sis­tance, which ul­ti­mate­ly al­lowed me to pur­chase the com­mer­cial prop­er­ty that hous­es Caribbean Cater­ers to­day. What start­ed as a chal­lenge turned in­to an op­por­tu­ni­ty. Own­ing my space was a game-chang­er,” she said.

To­day, Caribbean Cater­ers stands as one of the pre­mier full-ser­vice cater­ing com­pa­nies in the re­gion. The com­pa­ny op­er­ates out of two lo­ca­tions: the orig­i­nal kitchen and ware­house in North Bethes­da, and a sales of­fice with a show­room for event plan­ning. Its clien­tele in­cludes cor­po­ra­tions host­ing galas and non­prof­it fundrais­ers. It has al­so be­come a lead­ing name in lux­u­ry wed­dings, of­fer­ing not just food but full ex­pe­ri­ences with dé­cor, fine-din­ing se­tups, and seam­less ser­vice.

“Peo­ple come to us be­cause they want an el­e­vat­ed din­ing ex­pe­ri­ence,” said de Souza. “We cre­ate events that are as much about am­biance and hos­pi­tal­i­ty as they are about cui­sine.”

She runs the busi­ness in­de­pen­dent­ly, though her chil­dren—one a lawyer, the oth­er a busi­ness­man—sup­port her with ad­vice. While not in­volved in day-to-day op­er­a­tions, she has been in­ten­tion­al about sys­temis­ing the busi­ness to en­sure its longevi­ty.

She notes that the cater­ing in­dus­try is not for the faint of heart. “It re­quires a deep com­mit­ment—not just to your clients but to your craft and the ex­pe­ri­ence you de­liv­er.”

More than a cater­er, de Souza is al­so a de­sign­er. She en­joys lead­ing her team in cre­at­ing ta­blescapes, se­lect­ing colour palettes, and plan­ning seat­ing arrange­ments, all as part of her tai­lored event so­lu­tions. “We are not a restau­rant. We’re a cater­ing ser­vice.”

The dy­nam­ic busi­ness­woman is al­so fea­tured on the cov­er of Mind­ing Their Own Busi­ness: Five Fe­male Lead­ers From Trinidad and To­ba­go, an eBook by Tri­ni-Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Joanne Kil­go­ur Dowdy.

“With over 20 years in busi­ness, Caribbean Cater­ers con­tin­ues to thrive—prov­ing that with pas­sion, per­sis­tence, and the right mind­set, lo­cal busi­ness­es can grow and cre­ate last­ing lega­cies in their com­mu­ni­ties,” de Souza added.