For almost seventeen years Nigel and Kathy Hughes have kept the Sidewalk going, not just kept it going, but carved out a niche for the establishment in the competitive and continually changing tastes in the urban entertainment. The chic night clubs, daring dee jays and dancehall music have, from time to time, risen up to issue their own challenges; the Sidewalk Café has chosen its own path, endearing itself to a separate clientele by offering a tasteful – some say and old-fashioned environment of relaxing ambience, tasty food and classy music.
There’s a market for entertainment and fine dining in the capital particularly among the rising numbers of young and not-so-young upwardly mobile people, big spenders, who seek their money’s worth. When you ask the opinions of the night-life people on what the Sidewalk Café has to offer you find that mostly, they prefer the racier environment of the Night Clubs, the noise, the sweat and the sexual tension. Sill, over the years, enough of the market has responded to what the Sidewalk has offered, ‘cool’ music including live local and international jazz artistes, tasty food and a more sedate crowd perhaps not so ‘big’ on the rigours of the dancehall environment.
But staying abreast of the demands of the entertainment industry can be challenging and proprietors of places of entertainment stand still at their own peril. On the other hand, masking the changes, responding to the requirements of the market in order to keep with what can sometimes be a certain fickleness in the entertainment market, requires financing. The Hughes’, however, have no choice. The fortunes of the Sidewalk Café have changed. If it is to remain viable it has to re-invent itself.
Closing down might have been an option. That would have meant denying the facility’s ‘faithful’ a genre of entertainment that exists nowhere else in the urban setting. The Bourbon Restaurant and Bar, an intimate venue ideal for small wedding receptions, family reunions, Christmas parties, and dinners would have gone. So too would have the daily buffet luncheons comprising
exclusively Guyanese dishes. When you come to understand, however, that for the Hughes’ the Sidewalk Café is as much a labour of love as it is a place of business you come to understand quickly that closing down was not an option.
The place has had its moments…and superb moments they were. Ace Canon, The Drifters, and Barbadian Arturo Tappin have all graced the sidewalk with their musical talents as has the Guyanese falutist Keith Waithe Trinidad’s best known steel pan aficionados, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe and Ken Philmore have aldo ‘done their thing’ at the Sidealk Café as have bass guitarist Boo Hinckson and St. Lucia’s tenor saxophonist Luther Francois, a fixture at the SL Jazz Festival.
The Sidewalk is home to keyboardist Trevor ‘TJ’ John, bass guitarist George Reid, rhythm guitarist Herbie ‘Hancock’ Marshall and drummer/steel pan maestro, Michael ‘Drummie’ Smith. Local performers like Sharon Archer, Sydney ‘Magic’ Chester, Pamela Gittens, Jessica Xavier, Sean Bhola, Charmaine Blackman and Bunny Alves have also performed for audiences at the Sidewalk.
Change, nonetheless, is inevitable. Cathy Hughes, whose public prominence now goes well beyond her role as the key figure behind the Sidewalk Café, says that in recent years the accustomed clientele of professionals, both young and not so young, business people and visitors to Guyana have dwindled. Simultaneously, the rising costs of air travel, accommodation, performers’ fees and advertising have meant that international talent has become unaffordable. Only the local artistes remain.
Nigel, one of the country’s best-known Attorneys, points to the sloth of the tourism sector and to the period of unchecked crime of earlier in the decade as factors that slowed business down. The consequent business decisions included the laying off of some staff and the sub-contracting of the catering, designed to create a smaller, more manageable enterprise. That apart, the in-house Jazz Quartet now share with the Sidewalk’s management the cost of advertizing. Management is responsible for on-line marketing. “It works like a partnership with a very fine distinction that would not be evident to any observer,” Cathy says. “We have had to change the recipe, so to speak, in order to respond to the needs of our market and to the emerging trends our patrons are demonstrating.”
The new management regime now allows Cathy more time to focus on the running of the Ariantze Hotel, situated on the same premises. Since July occupancy has increased and Cathy is cautiously optimistic that the increase in the occupancy rate will persist at least well into the new year. Meanwhile, the rooms and surroundings are being upgraded and new services such as computer access, free DVD movies and same-day dry cleaning are being added.
Plans are also underway for the approaching Christmas season. December is usually a busy month for the Sidewalk with its various business and family functions, parties and dinners and live shows. In any given week during the holiday period at least three such events are held there.
Plans for the first quarter of 2012 include the planned resuscitation of the fortnightly Wednesday afternoon Designer Touch Tea event that ventures into the world of haute couture. The aim is to use the Sidewalk as an another avenue for creative and cultural expression including helping young fashion designers show off their creations at tea time.
Nigel and Cathy have not lost sight of the Sidewalk’s enduring interest in promoting new music, new groups and expressive creative talent. They say that the Sidewalk will continue to be home to offerings of Rhythm and Blues, Jazz, Rock, Indian, African and American music; and in circumstances where such venues are not known to be part of the local entertainment infrastructure there are a great many people who are keeping their fingers crossed for Nigel and Cathy and for the Sidewalk Café.
