The quality of hospitality and entertainment afforded in Georgetown and its outskirts has improved markedly in recent years. Much of this is due to accelerated investment in services, particularly restaurants, hotels and night clubs and of course to the preparedness of patrons to shell out on having a nice time.
Earlier this week, Stabroek Business visited the year-old Midtown Chariot Hotel, Restaurant and Lounge located on Robb St between Cummings and Light streets and entered into a small world of courtesy, coziness and myriad flat-screen televisions offering an impressive diet of news, sport and music videos. Even that, however, does not distract from the attractive furnishing adorning the ample space and the lighting that works wonders for the ambience of the premises.
Schulder Griffith, the Midtown Chariot’s proprietor says that the array of television screens have been installed to entice a growing population of sports enthusiasts. These days, there is much to bring them in including the Caribbean Premier League, the Ashes, the Tour De France, the Pan American Games and a host of other world-renowned sporting events. Other screens offer the latest music videos and if you are inclined towards Karaoke there is that too.
What the Midtown Chariot seeks to do is to provide such legitimate entertainment between 09:30 hrs and midnight.
The restaurant, the proprietor boasts, offers taste and quality, with dishes varying from popular finger foods, ‘cutters’ as these are popularly known, to multi-course lunches and dinners and distinct Guyanese specialties like black pudding and souse available on Fridays. A busy, well-equipped kitchen means that there is hardly need to make reservations.
To the discerning eye, the major attraction in the décor of the lounge including an artfully designed ceiling lit up in muted blues and reds, washing the cozy room in shades of lavender and maroon, particularly conducive to sipping drinks with nice people.
Situated obliquely opposite Nigel’s Supermarket, the Chariot, this past year, has become a home-away-from-home for visitors to Guyana particularly from neighbouring countries. Airline workers have also found the 11-room hotel appealing on account of its homely ambience. The corridors on every floor are decorated with plants strategically positioned to draw attention to the carved wooden interior doors and closets, beds and picture frames; all of this is curiously juxtaposed against modern fixtures everywhere including the bathrooms in every room.
The meeting of indigenous craftsmanship and first-world art is bound to attract the attention of the discerning visitor. Curiosity leads one to the Sky Garden on the uppermost floor adorned with a variety of lush decorative plants placed on the periphery of the mostly open rooftop. From the outer rail one gets an almost bird’s eye view of much of the commercial area of Robb Street. Late at night when the business day is done, this aerial view of the street provides a visual of the changes that this section of the city has undergone in the past few years. New buildings have gone up, most now rising vertically since there is little space to expand horizontally in the half and quarter lots that Bourda, Alberttown and Lacytown had been divided into many years ago.
The Midtown Sky Garden was set up as a central venue for small, intimate weddings, birthday parties, staff parties, family reunions or just a well-appointed meeting place for friends looking for a bit of quiet or an escape from the average watering hole in town. It seats up to 60 persons.
Since the objective of the Midtown Chariot is to please everyone, the music system in the Sky Garden is de-linked from the system in the ground-floor lounge which gives the DJ the freedom to change the genres of music according to the clients’ wishes.
“Everybody who enters these doors is treated like family,” Griffith says, “and if we found out yesterday that today is your birthday, we will make it one that you will remember for a long time.” Midtown treats its known customers to birthday cakes and beverages, and it provides the facilities for impromptu celebrations including cordless microphones for singing and well wishes.
Griffith has a long-term ambition to re-awaken cultural expression especially through music and dramatic poetry and seeks the participation of both home based Guyanese and those in the diaspora as well as musicians from the Caribbean and the Hemisphere. These days, Midtown hosts live Friday night jazz, featuring well-known jazz aficionados like Herbie Marshall, Charmaine Blackman and Bonny Alves. The plan is to expand this crew of accomplished musicians over the short term to include more Guyanese musical talent.
“The best thing about this is the formality that we will insist on. We wish to bring standards back so it starts here,” Griffith stated.
From a yet undecided date in August 2015, patrons and performers alike will be required to be attired in formal wear in order to enter the Sky Garden on Jazz night.
If Griffith has his way he is convinced that he can deliver a key urban entertainment hub offering ‘good times’ in an environment that shuts the world out, even if for a few hours.
