Breakfast Shed workers call for support from Govt ministers

Workers at The Breakfast Shed, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, which is famous for country-style, home-cooked creole food, are pleading with Ministers who frequent the place to stand by them. There are plans to relocate the landmark to make way for a highway to replace Wright-son Road. The majority of stallholders said they were offered TT$500,000 and asked to move out by the end of September. “They have said nothing about relocation,” said Rachel Dickson, who has had her stall there for the past five years. The Breakfast Shed has some 15 stalls, with each owner employing at least two other persons. Dickson told Sunday Newsday the money being offered would not be enough to sustain a livelihood for the 30-40 women who work in The Breakfast Shed. “We want relocation rather than money. Half a million dollars would not support all these women for the rest of their lives,” she said.

She felt hurt that government would treat them like this, especially since The Breakfast Shed has put TT on the international map with their culinary delights. “Even international magazines have featured The Breakfast Shed,” she stated. Dickson said she is self-employed with her food stall and employs two other women, who also have families. “If they don’t relocate us, that is a lot of families Government will be putting on the breadline,” she added. Another worker, Stephanie Gill, who had been at the institution for as long as she can remember, was quick to remind Planning and Development Minister, Dr Keith Rowley, that he is alive today because his mother made a living working at The Breakfast Shed. “I can’t understand why it is that Keith Rowley cannot stand up with us and find a place for us; this is his grassroots. There are so many other Ministers who come here and eat, and see the good home-cooked food they are getting,” she said. “I can’t see why they cannot stand up with us and help.”

For a lot of the older women, The Breakfast Shed was all they knew. Violet Kelly has known The Breakfast Shed for over 40 years. She remembered when it was located where the yellow-band maxi-taxi stand is on South Quay and then to Edward Street, Port-of-Spain, before being relocated to the Cruise Ship Complex where it now stands. Kelly is a widow and many of the other women are single parent mothers. Gina  Smith, popularly called “Miss Gina,” said, “The government has to remember, they made us a legal entity and they can’t just take it away from us like that.” US visitor Arthur Xavier, who was born to Trinidadian parents, appealed to government to keep the concept of The Breakfast Shed intact, since that culinary experience is a reflection of TT “in all its glory.” Asked how his culinary experience was, Xavier said, “Excellent! Trini to the oxtail and cowheel bone.” A report indicated that the Urban Development Corporation of TT (UDECOTT) has assured the workers that authorities said The Breakfast Shed would be relocated.