MARGARITAVILLE Caribbean Group is now on the hunt for an additional 400 people to fill current positions in its restaurants across Jamaica and the Turks and Caicos Islands, but is pushing ahead with plans to launch its newest restaurant concept, the Bob Marley One Love Restaurant at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, St James, next month.

Margaritaville Caribbean Group, which operates roughly three dozen restaurants, mostly in the Sangster International Airport (SIA) through its Express Catering subsidiary, said its staffing level is a fraction of the number the company needs to operate optimally.

“We are 1,000 people and we need to employ people,” Ian Dear, CEO and chairman of the Margaritaville Caribbean Group, told the Jamaica Observer in an interview last week.

“We need 400 people across the board in Jamaica and Grand Turk,” Alton Thelwell, vice-president for operations at the Margaritaville Caribbean Group, who was part of the interview, chipped in. Thelwell added: “We need 60 to 70 people easily in the Turks right now, and I can’t find them.” Margaritaville Caribbean Group operates its flagship Margaritaville restaurant at the cruise pier on the island of Grand Turk. It also operates four Margaritaville restaurants in Jamaica – SIA, Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Negril – and one in St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. A Margaritaville restaurant that was operated in the Cayman Islands was shuttered during covid and has not been reopened. In addition to those restaurants, the company operates 32 restaurants and a bar in the Sangster International Airport ranging from Dairy Queen, Quiznos Subs and Salads, Cinnabon and Wendy’s.

But staffing those entities has not been easy.

“Getting staff in Jamaica is a big problem. It’s a huge problem,” Dear indicated. Thelwell said the problem became a bigger one after the restaurants were reopened following lockdowns implemented at the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“Some people have left for the overseas programmes,” Elleanor Cole-Reivers, general manager for Coral Cliff, a subsidiary of the Margaritaville Caribbean Group, told the Business Observer. “It’s a brain drain for the company,” said Jeanelle Waddell, general manager, Margaritaville Montego Bay.

The company said the issue is not only about the staffing quantities, but also the quality of the staff for hire.

“If I want a server, I don’t just want a body. I want somebody who understands how to approach a table to deal with the guests, but even with training, some staff members still operate below the standards required,” Thelwell said about the quality of people available for hiring.

“We have lost a lot of experienced people and to replace them, you are getting somebody that is very green, and if you don’t have the right foundation to start with it’s a huge learning curve to get them to where they need to get,” Dear added.

“It’s really hard to find experienced people, and once you start to tell those who apply about the standards that we’re looking for, and the whole mindset that we want, they cannot be bothered,” Kimley McIntosh, training and quality control manager for Margaritaville Caribbean Group, pointed out.

Cole-Reivers, who manages the Coral Cliff gaming and entertainment, said she believes it’s that “people just don’t really want to work anymore. There’s a change in the culture that has been developed, for one reason or the other. I know for COVID, it appears that most people became entrepreneurs, so they found other things to do. And then you have those who have turned to the “alternative sources”. She didn’t elaborate on what the alternative sources were but the indication is that it is in reference to lottery scamming.

Expansion plans

However, even with those issues, Dear says he remains bullish on Jamaica and is going ahead with plans to expand the concepts which the Margaritaville Caribbean Group has to offer.

“With tourism figures now surpassing 2019 levels, our business is definitely moving in the right direction and we are very thankful for that,” Dear said.

“In our airport operations with Express Catering, reflecting the confidence we have in what is happening, we continue to invest substantial amounts of money in that space.”

He said the crown jewel of that expansion is the Bob Marley One Love Restaurant which is scheduled to be opened “sometime in March at the [Sangster International] airport. “It’s [going to be] a reflection in a restaurant space, what Bob stood for in all the right essences. And we are trying to create that experience and journey.

Dear said the agreement to start the restaurant was signed “in the middle of COVID” after 20 years of negotiations.

“Believe it or not, we actually walked away from the deal 20 years ago because we didn’t feel we were in the right place to do justice and do right by Bob’s legacy.”

“So 18 years after walking away from the deal, we re-engaged the Marley family and told them we are ready now.”

“We are going to roll it out first in the airport then other locations in Jamaica, then we will roll it out in the Caribbean and we’re gonna roll it out in the US. And then we’re also going to take it further once we’re established that rollout.”

He said the Marley family with whom the deal was signed, will get a royalty from its operation, but declined to outline the value of the royalty, saying it will be announced when the location is open in another few weeks. He, however, said the deal is a performance-based agreement “so we do have to roll out a certain number of restaurants” over time as he added that the family will get royalties “forevermore”.

Dear also declined to say how many Bob Marley One Love restaurants will be opened under the agreement.

“We have a certain number [of stores to roll out] in our heads, but we need to fine-tune the concept properly, get it operational, and to see where we can fit into the marketplace before we roll them out. But, I think Jamaica will have at least two to four locations outside of the airport,” he said.

The Bob Marley One Love restaurants aside, the Margaritaville Caribbean Group will be expanding some of the restaurants which are now only located at the Sangster International Airport that are operated by its Express Catering subsidiary, across Jamaica. These include Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, Cinnabon and Spice Kitchen and Bar.

These restaurants are operated only in the departure area of the airport. Dear said they will be expanded first to the arrivals section to make them available to the public and after six months “we will start looking to go to Kingston and then across the island”. The expansion is set for this calendar year, though Dear said the exact timeline is yet to be finalised.

“We are constantly evaluating opportunities and as a group, we are very bullish on Jamaica. We’re very bullish on the Caribbean. We’re very bullish that not withstanding all of the challenges that we see right now, this is another phase, we’re going to get past it and we have to plan for the future.”

“We will be rolling out these concepts in some additional islands over the next few years, including the Margaritaville brand. We have two or three islands already under discussion, so that’s going to be a reality in short order.” Dear said that expansion will mostly be in the eastern Caribbean and also hinted on extending the brand to the Bahamas.

In addition to that, he said the company has other international brands that it will be bringing to the Sangster International Airport.

“We have a sushi concept called Bentos that’s coming. We have a juice concept called Freshen that’s also coming very shortly.”

It also recently opened a new bar at the centre of the airport.