GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

T&T Restau­rant Week has of­fi­cial­ly en­tered a new chap­ter in its evo­lu­tion—recog­nised for the first time as a na­tion­al fes­ti­val by the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism.

This new des­ig­na­tion el­e­vates Restau­rant Week be­yond the realm of a culi­nary event; it now stands shoul­der to shoul­der with icon­ic na­tion­al fes­ti­vals like Car­ni­val, re­flect­ing its deep­en­ing im­pact on tourism, em­ploy­ment, and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

Founder Shi­ra Mo­hammed, who was born in Italy and came to this coun­try around nine, was in­spired by her home coun­try’s cul­ture of recre­ation­al din­ing. She en­vi­sioned a shift in Trinida­di­an so­cial habits—from lim­ing at bars and clubs to gath­er­ing around ta­bles for food, con­ver­sa­tion and con­nec­tion.

What be­gan 13 years ago as a grass­roots ini­tia­tive to en­cour­age din­ing and which start­ed off with just 13 restu­rants has grown in­to a vi­brant, mul­ti-sec­tor cel­e­bra­tion of food, cul­ture and com­merce.

T&T Restau­rant Week, which start­ed last Fri­day and goes on for 10 days, now boasts par­tic­i­pa­tion from over 100 es­tab­lish­ments, rang­ing from cozy cafés to lux­u­ry fine din­ing venues and un­con­ven­tion­al play­ers like bowl­ing al­leys, ho­tels, and even tour boats of­fer­ing cu­rat­ed food ex­pe­ri­ences.

In an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian, Mo­hammed, an events man­ag­er, said she be­lieves the fes­ti­val’s des­ig­na­tion places T&T Restau­rant Week along­side icon­ic na­tion­al events like Car­ni­val, un­der­scor­ing its val­ue in pro­mot­ing tourism, sup­port­ing lo­cal busi­ness­es and en­hanc­ing T&T’s glob­al brand.

The shift from “event” to “fes­ti­val” is more than sym­bol­ic.

With grow­ing par­tic­i­pat­ing busi­ness­es, din­ers and an ecosys­tem of sup­pli­ers, the fes­ti­val now func­tions as a sea­son­al eco­nom­ic en­gine—one that ac­ti­vates mul­ti­ple sec­tors and gen­er­ates eco­nom­ic rip­ple ef­fects across the econ­o­my.

One of the most im­me­di­ate and vis­i­ble im­pacts of the fes­ti­val is job cre­ation, Mo­hammed said.

She ex­plained that in the lead-up to the event, restau­rants ramp-up hir­ing to meet in­creased de­mand, adding that while core kitchen staff may re­main sta­ble, there’s a no­table uptick in ser­vice roles—line cooks, servers, greeters, and sup­port staff. This sea­son­al em­ploy­ment boost is es­pe­cial­ly valu­able for younger work­ers and those seek­ing en­try-lev­el op­por­tu­ni­ties in hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

It al­so pro­vides a plat­form for skills de­vel­op­ment and ca­reer growth in a sec­tor that is of­ten over­looked in na­tion­al em­ploy­ment strate­gies.

The hir­ing surge is not lim­it­ed to restau­rants.

An­cil­lary ser­vices such as de­liv­ery dri­vers, lo­gis­tics co­or­di­na­tors, and event staff al­so see in­creased de­mand.

Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, when dine-in op­tions were re­strict­ed, T&T Restau­rant Week piv­ot­ed to de­liv­ery and take­away for­mats.

This adap­ta­tion kept par­tic­i­pat­ing restau­rants afloat and main­tained con­sumer en­gage­ment dur­ing a pe­ri­od of wide­spread un­cer­tain­ty.

It al­so cre­at­ed new job op­por­tu­ni­ties in the gig econ­o­my, par­tic­u­lar­ly for dri­vers and couri­ers.

Be­yond staffing, T&T Restau­rant Week has be­come a strate­gic sales win­dow for dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­nies. Much like Valen­tine’s Day or Moth­er’s Day, it now func­tions as a sea­son­al re­tail pe­ri­od.

Restau­rant Week’s man­dat­ed pre-fixed menu mod­el is a strate­gic pro­cure­ment.

By con­strain­ing menu com­plex­i­ty for the du­ra­tion of the event, the mod­el al­lows par­tic­i­pat­ing en­ti­ties to con­sol­i­date their in­gre­di­ent de­mand in­to spe­cif­ic, high-vol­ume or­ders.

Sup­ply chain ac­ti­va­tion and busi­ness mod­el in­no­va­tion

Lo­cal farm­ers al­so ben­e­fit sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

From let­tuce and toma­toes to herbs and sea­son­ings, the em­pha­sis on fresh, lo­cal pro­duce dur­ing T&T Restau­rant Week strength­ens ties be­tween restau­rants and agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­ers.

This not on­ly sup­ports rur­al economies but al­so re­in­forces the val­ue of farm-to-ta­ble sourc­ing in T&T’s culi­nary iden­ti­ty.

T&T Restau­rant Week has al­so be­come a cat­a­lyst for busi­ness mod­el in­no­va­tion.

Mo­hammed not­ed while tra­di­tion­al restau­rants re­main the back­bone of the fes­ti­val, new en­trants are re­defin­ing what it means to dine out.

She said bowl­ing al­leys like The Al­ley have joined the move­ment, us­ing its restau­rant to pro­mote en­ter­tain­ment of­fer­ings.

Casa Tours, a boat tour com­pa­ny, now of­fers meals dur­ing its Ca­roni Swamp ex­cur­sions, blend­ing well­ness and gas­tron­o­my in a sin­gle pack­age.

Mo­hammed al­so not­ed that a café in Cen­tral is pair­ing meals with spa treat­ments and mas­sages, cre­at­ing im­mer­sive ex­pe­ri­ences that go be­yond food.

This fu­sion of din­ing and ac­tiv­i­ty re­flects a broad­er trend to­ward ex­pe­ri­en­tial com­merce as con­sumers are in­creas­ing­ly seek­ing out unique, mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ences, and busi­ness­es are re­spond­ing with cre­ative of­fer­ings that com­bine food, en­ter­tain­ment, and lifestyle.

Mo­hammed re­in­forced that Restau­rant Week pro­vides a plat­form for these in­no­va­tions, al­low­ing busi­ness­es to test new con­cepts, at­tract new cus­tomers, and dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves in a com­pet­i­tive mar­ket.

The pric­ing struc­ture of Restau­rant Week is de­signed to be in­clu­sive, with tiers rang­ing from $175 to $575 for most of­fer­ings.

A new ul­tra-pre­mi­um cat­e­go­ry, in­tro­duced at the re­quest of se­lect restau­rants, push­es the ceil­ing to $1,275 fea­tur­ing high-end in­gre­di­ents like Wagyu beef cater­ing to din­ers seek­ing lux­u­ry ex­pe­ri­ences.

While some restau­rants use the event as a chance to boost short-term prof­its, chef Rishi Ra­moutar said his phi­los­o­phy is to of­fer dis­count­ed menus and en­cour­age culi­nary ex­plo­ration—not to cap­i­talise on in­flat­ed pric­ing.

“It was in­tend­ed to be a way to show­case your restau­rant and have a dis­count­ed menu to at­tract new clients. I just try to keep to that,” the own­er of 12byR­ishi’s said.

This phi­los­o­phy paid off.

Last year marked Ra­moutar’s first par­tic­i­pa­tion in Restau­rant Week, shar­ing that the re­sults were “in­cred­i­ble.”

This year, he said the mo­men­tum has con­tin­ued, with strong ear­ly turnout and sev­er­al days still to go.

How­ev­er, for this restau­ra­teur, suc­cess isn’t mea­sured sole­ly by the rev­enue gen­er­at­ed dur­ing the fes­ti­val.

“Yes, the ob­jec­tive is to make a prof­it,” he ac­knowl­edge, “But I don’t mean to make all the prof­it in nine or ten days.”

In­stead, he viewed T&T Restau­rant Week as a long-term in­vest­ment in cus­tomer loy­al­ty.

“I’m hop­ing to have re­turn cus­tomers from the in­tro­duc­tion of my restau­rant. The prof­it is not just for 10 days—it could be for years.”

Be­yond cus­tomer ac­qui­si­tion, Ra­moutar high­light­ed how his menu choic­es cre­ate de­mand for spe­cif­ic lo­cal in­gre­di­ents, which agreed sup­ports farm­ers and sup­pli­ers.

“Some­thing in our ra­men bowl is pick­led green toma­toes. You can’t go to any gro­cery or mar­ket to buy that—we have a farmer who just grows green toma­toes and picks them green just for us,” he said.

Movi­eTowne own­er Derek Chin al­so lent his voice to the grow­ing cho­rus of sup­port for T&T Restau­rant Week, main­tain­ing its strate­gic tim­ing from a busi­ness per­spec­tive.

Chin, a vet­er­an in the en­ter­tain­ment and hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try, de­scribed the event as a “nice spe­cial” that ar­rives at a cru­cial mo­ment—Sep­tem­ber, tra­di­tion­al­ly one of the slow­est months for con­sumer spend­ing.

“Sep­tem­ber is a very bad month busi­ness­wise,” Chin ex­plained. “It comes right af­ter the sum­mer hol­i­days when chil­dren are head­ing back to school, and fam­i­lies are fo­cused on buy­ing school books and sup­plies. Dis­pos­able in­comes shrink, and peo­ple nat­u­ral­ly cut back on en­ter­tain­ment and din­ing out.”

For busi­ness­es like Movi­eTowne, which re­ly heav­i­ly on foot traf­fic and dis­cre­tionary spend­ing, this sea­son­al lull can be par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing.

Restau­rant Week, how­ev­er, of­fers a time­ly boost. Chin not­ed that his par­tic­i­pat­ing restau­rants—Texas de Brazil, Riz­zoni’s, and Jaxx—have all seen strong per­for­mance dur­ing the event.

The fes­ti­val’s cu­rat­ed menus and pro­mo­tion­al pric­ing at­tract din­ers who might oth­er­wise stay home, rein­vig­o­rat­ing the din­ing scene and dri­ving traf­fic to en­ter­tain­ment hubs like Movi­eTowne. “It’s a great way to stim­u­late in­ter­est and ac­tiv­i­ty dur­ing a month that’s usu­al­ly qui­et,” he added.