Marie Lewis finds opportunities to navigate COVID-19

Customers and staff look up to the owner of Kiss Me Neck Restaurant and Bar, Marie Lewis.

Lewis started the bar more than 20 years ago, on Salt River Road in Clarendon, naming it after a play in which Jamaican comedian Oliver Samuels starred, she told The Gleaner.

The restaurant business came about after a few of her customers who were at the bar told her that they were hungry. She decided to cook something for them, and when she served the meal, other customers who turned up afterwards enquired if she was selling food.

This, she said, was the beginning of a new journey, and it didn’t take long for her to start the now-flourishing restaurant business.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in what she describes as “moments of ‘roughness”. Lewis says she has managed to navigate her way through it, and was also able to grow her businesses.

She credits her continued success to good advice from her ‘adopted brothers’, which include her bartender, chef, and those who either give her valuable advice or money to help her when she needs cash investment.

Lewis, who also owns a boat and sells fish, said she initially wanted to partner with someone who owned an engine, so she bought a boat, intending for them to work together. However, he opted out of the proposed partnership and wanted to sell the engine – she bought it, and now has another source of income.

MUST BE MULTITALENTED

Asked why she is taking on so many projects, including another venture she has recently embraced – farming a multi-acre land in Crofts Hill in the parish, some three hours’ drive away from where she lives – Lewis said that to survive the pandemic, one must be “multitalented”.

“You have to try more than one thing. You have to be smart; you can’t lay all of your eggs in one basket. Everything can’t fail one time,” she said.

Acknowledging the help of her adopted brothers in the business, Lewis said they look out for her and give her a helping hand when it is needed.

Lewis said that many business owners make the mistake of considering fellow entrepreneurs their competitors, instead of pooling resources and capitalising on each other’s strengths.

She said she intends to open another branch of Kiss Me Neck Restaurant in a nearby community, and she is looking forward to a bright future. She says she has no intention of slowing down.

Lewis says that the secret to success centres around one’s personality and how one treats others.

cecelia.livingston@gleanerjm.com