Referred to as a home away from home by many, the Coffee Bean Cafe and Eatery recently celebrated nine years of existence.
Owned and operated by Narvini Dewnath and her mother Seeta Dewnath, the business which is known for its wide variety of teas, cappuccinos, juices and a selection of foods for breakfast and lunch, is situated at Lot 133 Church Street, South Cummingsburg, Georgetown.
“… People who live on the East Bank, East Coast, out of town, they are in Georgetown the entire time and, you know, people come here, they work, they eat lunch, they bring their families to celebrate events. So it’s like your home away from home,” Narvini recently related to The Scene.
She said the business initially opened as a small-scale operation with a focus on breakfast only. However, over the years, it expanded to meet every customers’ needs and demand.
“As much as we are a cafe, I think we have just become more like a restaurant in a sense. A lot of our menu items were inspired by customers. … People came and they wanted different
things [and] we added them,” Narvini explained.
She said the establishment of the business was a joint decision made by her family.
As frequent travellers and based on past experiences, Narvini said, she and her family realised that there was a gap in terms of the provision of cafeteria services in Guyana. As such, a decision was made to open Coffee Bean.
“Many many years ago, before we opened, we would have people just come to visit, you would want to go for breakfast. We have gone for breakfast and people’s idea of breakfast is pinetart, cheese roll, Chinese cake. It was pastries and sandwiches, that was it. For me, I like a North American breakfast. I like pancakes, I like waffles, I like eggs; those kind of things. So, the options that were available at that time for breakfast were not what we were looking for,” Narvini related.
“ And I think it’s because we started this breakfast all day, we actually created a change in the business landscape as well because now breakfast is a popular thing. Everybody has scrambled eggs, they have got pancakes, waffles. And that’s what competition does to an economy. It helps people to do better and be better.”
As regards Coffee Bean, she said it’s about maintaining a standard. “A quality that you would have gotten from day one. We try to always maintain that. So the standard remains the same. If you have had a bad experience, I would say that’s very rare,” she said.
She further related that the atmosphere at the cafe is usually peaceful and the perfect spot to host meetings, telephone conversation, special events such as birthdays or simply just a meet up.
According to Narvini, the cafe also makes regular adjustments to its menu, that will keep people coming.
“We try to keep adding stuff to the menu all the time to keep people interested. To keep them wanting to come back and the fact that it’s a nice space, where you can sit and do your work, people like that. It’s usually a quiet place, but you can sit here and chat on the phone all day, have meetings. People seem to like having their birthdays here too,” she said.
A lot of people are health conscious and even when dining out, they maintain strict diets.
As such, Narvini said, Coffee Bean makes, “healthy food and a healthy lifestyle” a priority.
“We added healthier options like salads, then we got the wraps, we do a lot of quinoa. We do so many healthy things. We try to make sure the food is healthy. We use olive oil. We do grilled chicken. We don’t do like fried foods unless people want like fries. But we always took the healthier angle because we are weight conscious as well and when you eat out you must not feel guilty that you are doing so much damage… So, that was the other angle that we had taken – healthy food, healthy living and breakfast all the time.”
The cafe provides employment for approximately 10 women. “We believe in woman empowerment,” Narvini told The Scene.
“We have turned nine and the fact that we have survived this long, for us, it’s a big milestone. We took a chance and we were lucky because it was a small dream that become a reality, ” Narvini said.
