CLARENDON PARK, Clarendon — Jukie Chin was just 14 years old, in the mid-1970s, when it came to him that he was destined for the patty business.

The way the creator of Juici Patties tells it, he would buy beef patties in May Pen after a long day at Glenmuir High School, before boarding the bus for the slow, tedious journey to his home in Rocky Point.

Even at 14, the aspiring entrepreneur was struck by the weaknesses in the approach of those who owned and managed the patty shop, although it was obviously doing roaring business.

To begin with, Chin told 130 teenagers at an annual five-day Juici Patties Youth Leadership Workshop, and Volunteer Programme in Clarendon Park recently, he didn’t like the taste of the patties.

Just as crucial, the patty shop — located right beside the bus stop in May Pen and which Chin said is still on the same spot — didn’t have a name, and had no facilities for the physical comfort of customers.

“I found it kind of strange that a patty shop, or any business place, could not have a name… and I found it kind of strange that they didn’t have tables and chairs (for customers) to sit, and I found it kind of strange that the floor didn’t even have tiles,” he told his rapt audience.

The core of the idea formed in his head back then, said Chin.

Here was a prosperous patty shop which had “no tiles, no AC (air conditioning), no tables, no chairs and no parking… and the patty? I didn’t like it”.

So, what if the quality of the product as well as the customer service were all good?

Right then, Chin said, he told his childhood friends in May Pen that “if I could make a good patty, when I leave school I will make patties in May Pen”.

But he was only a boy, still in school, and he didn’t know how to make patties.

Yet, the thought never left him and when he left high school in 1978, at age 16, he went to Kingston to help his sister and her husband in their restaurant and patty shop.

“They offered me a part-time holiday job for about one month,” he said.

On Chin’s arrival in Kingston his sister went off on maternity leave, and he found himself “head cook and bottle-washer at 16 years-old”.

Said he: “I was managing, — learning to cook and learning to make patties. I was there for about six weeks…”

At the end of the period he said to himself: “I know to make patties now, so I want to go back to May Pen.”

But he didn’t have any money to set up shop in May Pen. so, he did the next best thing.

He made arrangements with his parents so he could make patties in their home behind the shop at Rocky Point, bake them in his mother’s stove, and sell them in the shop for 50 cents each.

He baked and sold patties at his parents’ place for about 10 months, saved his money, then went to May Pen and rented a shop for $150 per month.

“Today $150 cannot buy a patty,” Chin laughingly pointed out to his youthful audience.

In addition to the money to rent the premises for his patty shop, Chin raised a loan of $4,000 from his mother to furnish and equip the shop.

“And that,” said Chin, “is how it (Juici Patties) started in 1980,” while he was still a teenager.

“This year (2019) is 40 years since I am making patties, but under the name ‘Juici’ it’s really 39 years,” he said.

So popular was his Juici Patties brand that in just a few years — by the time he was in his early to mid-20s — Chin had set up stores in Santa Cruz, Christiana, Mandeville, Old Harbour, in addition to May Pen.

Chin told his audience seated on The Verandah of the spacious Juici Patties headquarters complex in Clarendon Park, that after his first five stores he felt he had done enough.

“I decided it was enough business, enough headache, I didn’t really want anything more; I was quite contented,” he recalled.

However, Chin soon discovered that the pressure for his successful business to keep growing was mounting.

“People kept saying why you don’t open a branch here or there…?” he said. Then friends came to him in the late 80s to 1990, suggesting franchising – they would set up their own businesses selling patties under his Juici brand.

By then the problem of consistent quality had arisen, because his branded Juici patties were being made in several different locations.

“In Santa Cruz the patty taste different from May Pen, patty in Old Harbour taste different…” he recalled.

Chin’s response was to centralise the patty-making end of the business in May Pen.

As time passed the business outgrew the space in May Pen, necessitating the move to the current 21-acre site at Clarendon Park.

Today, he told his listeners, there are more than 60 patty retail stores under the Juici brand.

“We (Chin family) have 18 stores and the rest are franchises,” he explained.

“We have manufacturing in Canada and in the UK (United Kingdom), and maybe in years to come other places too,” he said.

There were many questions from the youthful audience, seeking insight into how Chin overcame difficulties such as high interest rates in the earlier years of his business, security issues, and “dishonest” workers.

“Some persons might see challenges as a reason for not doing something, but I see it as just part of life,” he explained.

Chin later told the Jamaica Observer Central that a lingering challenge was “a shortage” of cattle, which sometimes forced his company to import beef.

He told his audience that a sustaining motivation was the desire to serve community and country.

“I look at it as our contribution to society in terms of employment and making sure our customers are satisfied,” he said.

Only three weeks ago, Juici Patties had “a soft opening” for a brand new, two-storey, fully air-conditioned store in Santa Cruz — replacing the cramped, decades-old rented premises.

Chin told Observer Central that an “official opening” of the new Santa Cruz store will take place in November/December, after a “little tweaking” involving installation of new furniture and other equipment.

While declining to give details of expansion plans, Chin said “we have a few more locations to look at”.

Community outreach is a cornerstone of the Juici Patties approach to business, which explained the annual youth leadership and volunteerism workshop that has hosted close 2,000 young people over a 15-year period.

A brainchild of Chin’s wife Edith, the annual workshop activity, in Chin’s words, seeks “to help the youth…inspire them…”

The recent workshop embraced such areas as entrepreneurship, communication, conflict resolution, career planning, volunteerism, health and wellness, and recreation.