Liburd explained that there were several factors which led to the eventual shut down of the operations.
"It is sad to give it up but it is something that I was forced to do. Right now Mingles is not rolling, it is not paying off. The money that we are making right now is not enough to run the business,"she said. "The expenditure is overriding the revenue. Also, the tourist season has gone out, so it is just left for the locals and the locals do not really go out that much. It is a very difficult task and I did not have the time to really be here 24/7 as I would have liked to be as I had my other job to attend to. I was just creating employment."
She continued, "As we closed out tonight we had an organized dinner so we catered for those people. It was a schools 30th anniversary and so we only catered to them tonight and we only prepared dinner for them. If we had something like this at least twice per week at least we could have pushed it but most nights looking out you only see one person, two persons or even nobody."
Liburd went on to explain her belief that the lack of patronage was due to the restaurant's excessive distance from Charlestown.
"I would attribute that to the location - for one as it is not central and persons who even live around the area you wouldn't find them patronizing the business so the persons who come they have to have a reason. All the work areas are centered in town and in the day time it is hard to leave an office to drive all the way over here for lunch. I don't think that it is a fault in our product; it is a fault in the location," she said.
In ending her interview with SKNVibes.com the Proprietor explained what motivated her to open the Mingles restaurant.
"We have been in operation since March 2006 so that would make us 14 months old. I always had a love for restaurants because that was my first thing that I did when I just started out - I had a place in town by the name of City Gate which was a snackette at first and then as it started growing we rented a bigger place and we called it Nevis City Gate and we had Bistro and one night per week we would have like dancing and fun," she said.
"The opening was good and then following the tourist season started up so it picked up and when the tourist season ended things went down. I would like to keep the restaurant and close it and when the tourist season starts back up we open up again but that wouldn't work as you have to be paying the rent so we cannot re-open. Well I would like to thank everybody who patronized the business however, if I had stuck out with the business it would only have been for my pride. Right now I am sticking to my upholstery and putting my all into that."
Liburd was born and raised in Zion but currently resides in Cole Hill. The Mingles Restaurant which was located at Cades Bay originally opened in March 2006 and closed its doors for the last time on Saturday 12th May 2007.
 |
An interior shot of Mingles Restaurant.
|
