After almost four decades in Canada Jackie Sue-Kam-Ling returns to Linden to sustain her father’s entrepreneurial tradition
Thirty-eight years after migrating to Canada, Jackie Sue-Kam-Ling has returned to Guyana, more specifically to Linden, to continue a tradition of entrepreneurship pioneered by her father Joseph.
Her grandfather had come to Guyana from Canton, China during the 1930s as an indentured labourer and had ended up raising a family here. In keeping with the tradition amongst many of the Chinese families who had settled here, her parents, Joseph and Rosalie, operated a laundry and bakery at the corner of Camp and Robb streets. Her father, Jackie says, was a shrewd operator and the five Sue-Kam-Ling boys, his sons, became popular as “distributors” of his Chinese cakes in the city during the late 1960s.
Eventually, Joseph moved to Linden, bought property in Wismar and established the town’s first ever ‘Brown Betty’ ice cream outlet. That apart, the senior Sue-Kam-Ling pursued his passion for baking on a grander scale. “My father worked hard and did well. He sold bread and cakes to the entire community and became one of the more successful businessmen in Linden at that time,” Jackie told Stabroek Business.
In 1976 he acquired property at 21 Republic Avenue in Linden and the following year he established a bakery and snackette there. The same year saw the start of a pattern of migration by the Sue-Kam-Lings. Jackie went to Canada where she pursued a Nursing Diploma at Senera College and afterwards, a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Services from Ryerson University in Toronto.
Having qualified herself she spent 22 years in the nursing profession in that country. Her parents, meanwhile, had left Guyana in 1983 having been victims of several robberies.
In Canada, the Sue-Kam-Lings retained their passion for Guyana and more particularly for Linden. Jackie recalls that the community had been good to them and that their Republic Avenue home held many pleasant memories.
The journey from the comforts of Canada to a mining town that had fallen on hard times was an eventful one for Jackie. Friends with whom she shared her desire to return to the community thought she was “crazy.” What sustained her was a passion– shared by her siblings – to have her father’s property “rise again” from the condition of near ruin into which it had fallen. To fulfill that dream she choose to let go of another, the dream of ploughing her savings into a Mercedes Benz as a fiftieth birthday present. Instead, she sank them into a long-held dream, to relink the name of Sue-Kam-Ling with entrepreneurial pursuits in Linden
The idea of a Food Court and Bar struck her during a visit here in April 2014 for the Linden Town Week celebrations. “I wanted some place where I could relax and sit and eat and drink with my friends who had also come from Canada. Unfortunately, I could find nowhere suitable,” she said.
Out of that experience, the Legends Sports Bar and Restaurant was born. The facility, which opened its doors to the public two weeks ago, seeks “to raise the bar” as far as dining and entertainment are concerned, Jackie says. The Sports Bar offers a broad range of local foods but perhaps above all else it offers leisure and comfort. It provides employment for a staff of two cooks, two service staff and an Operations Manager. Jackie makes a point about the fact that her cooks and service staff are single-parent mothers. “I want what I do to make a difference,” she says, pointing out that while the new venture is a business she is seeking to cause it to become “a part of the community.”
She boasts openly about the quality of her pastries. “It is my father’s tradition. We definitely have the best pastries around.”
Linden Town Week this year will provide Jackie with her first big opportunity to show what she can do. During her first few weeks of trading, memories of her father’s entrepreneurial pursuits come flooding back. “Last Monday marked the fifteenth anniversary of his death and we visited his grave,” she says. Her 71-year-old mother who has also re-migrated from Canada lives with her in Linden.
Beyond the establishment which she has just opened Jackie says she wants to work with the community. “I want to use my training to do what I can for people with addictions. Apart from that, I am hoping that what we are doing can help to create a positive atmosphere and to provide jobs for people in Linden,” she adds.