Despite the ongoing pandemic, Cleveland Chapel is one of the most popular hotdog vendors around Georgetown. So much so, in fact, that by after 3 pm or sometimes 4 pm it is more than likely that all of his hotdogs will be finished.
Chapel’s hotdog business is often set up just outside of the Digicel store at the Regent Multicomplex Mall at Regent and Wellington streets.
He began his business four years ago outside of St Joseph High School and opposite North Georgetown Secondary. However, a few years before that, his mother had sold hotdogs for about 10 years.
His mother, he said, worked at sea following his father’s passing a long time back but when work paused, she needed to find an alternative to continue to provide. She had always made hotdogs for the family, while he was a boy and because she could do that well, she ventured into the hotdog business.
After a decade, he said, he asked her to stop working as the years were beginning to tell on her. The hotdog business was put on pause before he picked it up again some years later. Chapel operated his business at the schools for a year before taking up position in front of the mall where he has been for the last three years.
The hotdog business, he shared, has always been a thriving one. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, he worked as a porter with a water company, selling bottled water before moving on to work at Beepats as a porter. Chapel said he never thought about one day owning his own business but realizing how much good the business did for his mother, he decided to get into it.
“I always tell people, when you doing something, you have to love it and that’s the way you will prosper. You shouldn’t love doing a job because of the money,” Chapel posited. According to the man, he finds pleasure in being of service to his customers.
Chapel is efficient. Almost all day, the hotdog cart is swarmed by customers. Often, half of them have placed orders for more than one hotdog.
To be able to cater to his customers effectively, he gets organized the night before. Although his business ends long before the sun sets, Chapel is up every night past 1 am. Before he begins preparing the ingredients later in the evening, he first visits his regular supermarket to purchase all he would need for the following day’s business.
“In the night I would make the potato chips to go on the hotdogs. I would grate it and then fry it in a deep fryer. You have to season your sausages also to cut the rank. To do that I would boil water with onion and other seasonings and once it taste the way I want it to taste, I would throw the sausages in. Certain sauces we have to prepare directly before leaving,” he said.
After a few hours of sleep, Chapel is back up between 4 am or 5 am to start making his sauces, grating carrots and cheeses as well as cutting his hotdog buns down the middle so that they are ready. He cuts and packs 100 buns and never returns home with any. During the Christmas season, he has to cater for seasonal shoppers, which would find him doubling up. Selling 200 hotdogs a day may seem like a lot, even during peak season but they all go fast.
Asked what this Christmas season was like given the unusual circumstances, the man said it did not seem like COVID had impacted seasonal shopping at all since he was selling the same 200 hotdogs daily as he did last year.
The entrepreneur is usually on site and ready to operate by between 8.30 am and 9 am but selling his hotdogs starts long before he gets to the spot. Chapel, who lives at Buxton, East Coast Demerara, travels to his mother’s home in Georgetown every day and sets up his hotdog cart, which he then pushes to Regent Street. As he walks along, customers stop him to buy hotdogs. However, with his hotdogs in a higher demand for the Christmas season, he has been sleeping at his mother’s place to be able to prepare for the next day. Part of being effficient is also having his own cashier and not dealing with collecting and/or changing money. His mother, he noted, takes care of that part. His hotdogs cost $260 each.
As it relates to where he intends to take his venture in the near future, the father of three said that business is flourishing and he has no intention of making any changes anytime soon.
