Business View Caribbean | June 2022

21 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 6 THE DACHIN GROUP OF COMPANI ES prone to outbreaks. For the restaurants, there was a curfew and a state of emergency – no alcohol allowed, no children – everything that was possible to close a restaurant was done. But thank God, I can say we are still around. Because we had to do what was necessary, and in some cases close down to ride it out. “In April this year, the government removed what was called a ‘safe zone’– which meant you could only operate if you allowed vaccinated customers and vaccinated staff to work. Everybody else could not come in. So we lost about 50 percent of the population for quite a few months. And of course we felt that because the volume and capacity levels were very low. Since then, we’ve had the restaurants all fully stocked and cleaned and open, and that’s a celebration in itself.” BVM: Tell us about your different restaurant and cinema locations. Chin : “We have Jaxx International, which is more like a family dining atmosphere. We have four of those in Trinidad and one in Guyana. We also operate Texas de Brazil, our two Rizzoni’s Italian restaurants, and we have Movie Towne which is the icon of the group. Our cineplexes are world- class standard. Currently, we have Port of Spain (a 10-plex in a mall with tenants, such as Burger King, Starbucks, KFC, and different shops) and a Pricemart volume shopping enterprise. We also have a Movie Towne in San Fernando, the second largest city in Trinidad, in a mall called C-3. We have one of the most beautiful cinemas in the world right there. It’s an 8-plex, where we show all the big movies that come out. We are happy that we can allay people’s fears about COVID and have them back to watch the amazing films. “We’ve now moved into Guyana – the new Saudi Arabia of the Caribbean with their huge oil refineries. We went into Guyana in 2019, and then came COVID. So we had a very bad start but we have now opened in a very beautiful mall with Hard Rock Café as one of our anchors, and a big Massy’s supermarket. It has an 8-plex cinema that is actually ahead of its time for Guyana, but it’s nice to have something of that standard for people to enjoy in that part of the world.” “So we have three main complexes – one in Port of Spain, one in San Fernando, and a big one in Guyana, as well as a small one in Tobago. The Port of Spain mall is about 90% leased, and there is a lot of confidence. We’ve also offered discounts on rent fees to help get people back on their feet. Those like Starbucks and the other more popular stores are almost back to 100% rental costs and they have no problem with that because they’re doing very well. But we tend to be a little more lenient with the smaller ones that aren’t as affluent. It’s a step-by-step process, we look at it every month – we know what’s going on, because we have restaurants too.” BVC: What other projects have you been working on? Chin: “My son Ryan has been experimenting