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They Left a Successful Business in Canada to Open a Bakery in Kingston · Babes, how did you get here

• 0:00
  Welcome to A Life Elsewhere, a podcast that unpacks what it's really like to walk away from everything you know and begin again in a new country.
• 0:09
  I'm April Jackson, and in each episode, I speak with bold souls who have traded in comfort for the unknown in pursuit of a different kind of life.
• 0:17
  Today I'm speaking with Eleni, 10 years ago on the hilltops of Jamaica, captivated by the views she knew that she couldn't go back.
• 0:24
  Just months later, her, her husband and their three kids walk away from a successful construction business to chase a dream that they never planned for.
• 0:33
  A year after that, they find themselves opening the Caribbean's only sourdough bakery in Kingston.
• 0:39
  No experience, no roadmap, just a vision and the courage to begin.
• 0:46
  Angel.
• 0:48
  April.
• 0:50
  No, so tell me, you live in Kingston, Jamaica.
• 0:53
  You are from Canada.
• 0:55
  Talk me through how you got here.
• 0:57
  I love coconuts.
• 0:59
  That's it.
• 1:00
  There's lots of other places with coconuts, babes.
• 1:01
  There's Thailand, there's Indonesia.
• 1:04
  They don't wear socks with their sandals.
• 1:06
  Do you make them to wear socks with their sandals?
• 1:07
  They do.
• 1:07
  Have you not seen the windshield washers?
• 1:09
  They're just trying to be American though.
• 1:10
  I thought that was an American thing.
• 1:11
  No.
• 1:12
  Socks and sandals.
• 1:14
  You want to wear socks and sandals?
• 1:15
  I do.
• 1:16
  That's why I fit in here.
• 1:16
  Why do you wear socks and sandals?
• 1:17
  Well, because sometimes your toes get cold with the breeze, but you want the flexibility of feeling free and not being stifled by a whole shoe.
• 1:25
  I would say we can't be friends with socks and sandals.
• 1:28
  I hate socks and sandals.
• 1:30
  Like, I didn't know that about you.
• 1:32
  I don't know how I feel.
• 1:33
  I'm sorry.
• 1:34
  That's it.
• 1:34
  Well, I'm glad that you don't have socks and sandals now.
• 1:36
  No, no, I just stopped for you.
• 1:38
  So coconut socks and sandals, anything else?
• 1:41
  Weather, definitely.
• 1:42
  Okay.
• 1:44
  The weather is kind of harsh in Canada.
• 1:46
  The winters are cold and long.
• 1:48
  Yeah.
• 1:49
  But it came down to a visit to Jamaica with my family.
• 1:52
  So I have a husband and four kids.
• 1:54
  One was born here, so we were vacationing with three kids.
• 1:57
  Okay.
• 1:58
  And we were in Montego Bay in the hills.
• 2:00
  We're looking at this most exquisite view.
• 2:03
  And I'm just like, wow.
• 2:05
  And my husband, I think he was on this side of me.
• 2:06
  And I'm just like...
• 2:08
  I think we're doing life wrong.
• 2:11
  And nothing was wrong with our life.
• 2:12
  We had a great company and we were growing every year and things were great.
• 2:17
  But there was something about this view and this, why can't I enjoy this at least weekly?
• 2:24
  You don't necessarily live there, but you can drive there.
• 2:28
  And so we were doing life wrong, it felt.
• 2:31
  And then we went home.
• 2:33
  And then we came back to Jamaica to see, can we live here?
• 2:38
  So we came to Kingston.
• 2:39
  What is the city like?
• 2:40
  What kind of, because a Caribbean island has a lot of misconceptions, and you don't know a lot.
• 2:45
  So you don't really know, can I live there?
• 2:47
  Can I live there?
• 2:49
  somewhat close to what I'm used to, or is it going to be something completely different?
• 2:54
  Can I still have a business?
• 2:56
  Can I have a business in a field I'm familiar with?
• 2:58
  Tell me she didn't take the money.
• 2:59
  She didn't take the money, but I got the answer within 30 minutes of sending it.
• 3:03
  Literally?
• 3:05
  And I was like, okay, well done.
• 3:07
  So we got the number, we called Patrick, you know, hi, how are you?
• 3:10
  We want to open up a bakery.
• 3:11
  Where?
• 3:12
  Jamaica, what?
• 3:13
  And he's like, and we sent him all the money we had left.
• 3:17
  Okay.
• 3:17
  I thought it was your brethren.
• 3:19
  He is, but he put together our entire bakery in France.
• 3:22
  Okay.
• 3:22
  He went shopping for us.
• 3:23
  Okay.
• 3:24
  So he picked up everything in France.
• 3:26
  He got huge equipment from Italy.
• 3:27
  He put it all together, put it into a container and shipped it to us.
• 3:30
  Okay.
• 3:30
  Because we also didn't really know what we needed.
• 3:32
  But by this point,
• 3:34
  If we have a concrete plan?
• 3:36
  No, we're opening up a bakery.
• 3:38
  So we're just sending the money to our bedroom.
• 3:39
  And he's sending us everything we need.
• 3:41
  Okay.
• 3:41
  It's like a bakery in a box.
• 3:42
  Right.
• 3:44
  But we still don't know how to bake the bread.
• 3:46
  No.
• 3:47
  Cool.
• 3:47
  So we decide to hire a pastry chef and a baker.
• 3:50
  Okay.
• 3:52
  I feel responsible for the bad hiring of the baker.
• 3:56
  Okay.
• 3:57
  Because I did the interviews.
• 3:59
  Why?
• 3:59
  My husband let me lead that, which I appreciated.
• 4:03
  But I did not make a good choice.
• 4:05
  How do we find this baker?
• 4:07
  It's like Craigslist for bakers in France.
• 4:10
  That was going to be a good idea.
• 4:13
  But Patrick was like, this is where bakers get jobs.
• 4:15
  Oh, do they?
• 4:16
  But it's like France, and then international.
• 4:20
  Right.
• 4:21
  And I think the people looking to leave, I think that's where Craig's just comes in.
• 4:24
  They're the rejects.
• 4:25
  Yes.
• 4:26
  So you got a baker reject from France, but you thought, babe, you're French.
• 4:32
  And he was in Sweden working.
• 4:34
  And then he had a family.
• 4:35
  And it cost us so much money to bring down his family from Sweden to Jamaica.
• 4:40
  And he really, because neither of us were bakers, he said what I wanted to hear and maybe believed that he could do it.
• 4:47
  My question is, the average Jamaican wouldn't know necessarily sourdough before you turn up on the scene.
• 4:52
  When you opened your business, was there any resistance?
• 4:56
  Was there any like, because presumably you were offering a premium product
• 5:03
  How did you navigate that in terms of the buy-in from your consumer?
• 5:06
  Or did you just open up and everybody is like, oh, this is a foreign thing.
• 5:09
  And sometimes you open up something that is foreign and everybody loves it.
• 5:13
  So everyone thought we were going to close our best clients for like, we bought all your bread the first week and put it in our freezer because we thought you were going to close.
• 5:20
  So many of my best clients.
• 5:23
  They were like, damn, suck up now.
• 5:25
  So many of them.
• 5:26
  No, really, they thought we were just going to go out of business.
• 5:28
  Why?
• 5:29
  Jamaica is not an easy place.
• 5:31
  Jamaicans take their food very seriously.
• 5:35
  They care very much about consistency.
• 5:38
  And while it might be a new product,
• 5:41
  Their taste buds are on point.
• 5:42
  Sure.
• 5:42
  You cannot fool a Jamaican into telling them that this is good.
• 5:46
  This is what it's like abroad.
• 5:48
  They'll be like, well, I don't care what's abroad.
• 5:50
  This does not work here.
• 5:52
  Sure.
• 5:53
  So there was a lot of growing pains.
• 5:55
  Because my husband had never baked a muffin when he started this.
• 5:57
  Like, he's an expert in sitting in an excavator and jacking up your apartment building.
• 6:02
  Sure.
• 6:02
  So the skill set is vastly different.
• 6:05
  That's why if you look in our bakery, we have like putty knives because that's what he uses to clean up flour.
• 6:09
  Okay.
• 6:10
  Because these are the tools that he's used to.
• 6:14
  That's really interesting because when I went to England to start my business, I was coming from the perspective of my dad's business.
• 6:20
  And there are people working for my dad that have been there longer than I've been alive.
• 6:22
  But that's the thing because it started.
• 6:24
  But his first couple of years, did you ever ask him how that was?
• 6:27
  Now that we're having this conversation, I feel like I need to, right?
• 6:29
  Because I just have this point of reference.
• 6:30
  So my dad, every Friday, would get a crate of oranges.
• 6:33
  He loved oranges.
• 6:34
  And he'd sit at the top floor of the office, and he'd just peel.
• 6:37
  And everybody knows, if you want an orange, just come and take an orange, right?
• 6:40
  And it was his way of, I guess, he doesn't like titles, like CEO and stuff.
• 6:44
  So it was his way of just reminding everyone that my door's open, this is like a family business.
• 6:49
  It's really sweet.
• 6:50
  It's really sweet.
• 6:50
  He's very lovely.
• 6:51
  But I thought that as long as you treat people well,
• 6:55
  you would automatically create that culture.
• 6:57
  And in the UK, that doesn't matter.
• 7:00
  Like, it doesn't matter at all.
• 7:02
  I mean, I've had like my head chef for like six and a half years, but that's rare in hospitality.
• 7:07
  And so it's really interesting to understand that it's a growing.
• 7:10
  You're saying that in the beginning, you're just like going through.
• 7:14
  Sorry to cut you off, but also I am not of this culture.
• 7:17
  So when I started interviewing people, I also wasn't sure what to look for.
• 7:21
  Right.
• 7:21
  So if you seemed generally decent, why can't I try you?
• 7:26
  Sure.
• 7:26
  And then sometimes I speak funny.
• 7:28
  People are nervous sometimes.
• 7:29
  Right.
• 7:29
  But you won't be nervous necessarily working.
• 7:31
  Sure.
• 7:32
  So just because you're nervous, and I understand most of the jobs are for customer service.
• 7:36
  Right.
• 7:38
  I'm still going to try you.
• 7:39
  Right.
• 7:39
  And you can maybe be a dishwasher if you can't do the...
• 7:42
  Right.
• 7:42
  So I tried a lot of people.
• 7:44
  Yeah.
• 7:44
  But maybe today I wouldn't have tried understanding culture a little bit better.
• 7:49
  What do you look for today?
• 7:50
  Someone who is not a suitcase.
• 7:52
  Okay.
• 7:53
  Someone who goes from job to job to job.
• 7:56
  People who have worked places for a couple of years here or a couple of years there because you get a lot of people and it's six months, three months, six months, and the contract ended, but no one ever renews your contract.
• 8:07
  Right.
• 8:07
  Do you resent the bakery at all in terms of that experience of motherhood?
• 8:11
  No.
• 8:12
  If I had been better organized, if I had done things differently, I could have avoided that.
• 8:16
  I feel like I wasn't prepared well enough and I couldn't have anticipated
• 8:22
  with trying to learn everything that we had talked about already.
• 8:25
  There was just so much on that plate that I could have added something.
• 8:29
  I didn't realize how to in time to be prepared.
• 8:34
  Okay.
• 8:35
  I guess I'm still trying to understand how we go from construction to bakery.
• 8:38
  Why didn't you stay in construction?
• 8:40
  Well, because I wanted bread.
• 8:42
  Okay.
• 8:44
  And I figured if it was a problem for me, it must be a problem for someone else.
• 8:47
  And I heard that the more affluent members of our society, when they were in Miami, because they go back and forth a lot, would just bring home bread and put it in the freezers.
• 8:54
  OK, so now they don't have to because they just come to you.
• 8:57
  And I have better bread than those places.
• 8:59
  And now they don't have to stock up in the freezer because nine years later, you're still here.
• 9:02
  Fresh.
• 9:02
  And I'm not closed.
• 9:03
  There you go.
• 9:04
  But so many people thought we'd be closed.
• 9:08
  Good clients of ours.
• 9:09
  Like I laugh.
• 9:11
  And then I'm just wondering in terms of your social life and really like fitting into the culture of Jamaica, because it sounds like you're at work all the time.
• 9:20
  except for the Monday.
• 9:21
  But then you're... We're open every day now.
• 9:23
  Okay, great.
• 9:24
  So we're at work all day, every day.
• 9:26
  How do you feel that that affected your ability to become a part of, like, a Jamaican community?
• 9:34
  Or do you even feel a part of a Jamaican community?
• 9:35
  Maybe you don't.
• 9:36
  I feel very much part of the Kingstonian community.
• 9:39
  Okay.
• 9:39
  Because the bakery has really kind of found its groove.
• 9:42
  Right.
• 9:43
  And we've done things for the community.
• 9:45
  We've done charity events for the community.
• 9:46
  So I think we are a part of the community.
• 9:48
  Right.
• 9:48
  Right.
• 9:50
  Personally, I think I built my own community because I'm a bit of an oddball.
• 9:54
  So I don't think I belong to a group of friends.
• 9:56
  But I have very interesting friends.
• 9:58
  Even though Kingston's very cliquey.
• 10:01
  I didn't grow up here.
• 10:03
  I think I could see it when I look at some of my clients and maybe how they interact.
• 10:09
  But we have big communal tables.
• 10:10
  People still sit together.
• 10:12
  Sometimes it's weird for people at first.
• 10:14
  And they're like, where am I supposed to sit?
• 10:15
  I'm like, anywhere you bike.
• 10:17
  So you don't feel like it prevented you from... Maybe because it's a social business as well, right?
• 10:21
  Like people are coming...
• 10:22
  It's very social.
• 10:23
  Yeah.
• 10:24
  I've gotten the chance to meet really interesting people.
• 10:27
  What's your favorite customer story?
• 10:30
  When the woman came up to me and said, when I use the vibrator, I don't like it inside.
• 10:35
  And I looked at her and I was just like, try the top.
• 10:42
  I should have said try the other hole, but I wasn't expecting the question.
• 10:45
  And why did you choose KC?
• 10:47
  Well, he was being trained by the football trainer.
• 10:51
  And so we had reached out to him to see if he could be put into contact with the lacrosse coach.
• 10:54
  Okay.
• 10:55
  To see if he could just train with them because there was nothing going on at all.
• 10:59
  And the coach was like, as long as there's no team, you know, I don't see why not.
• 11:02
  Sure.
• 11:02
  And so we had to go to the lacrosse coach.
• 11:03
  And then they stepped on him.
• 11:05
  They he was young.
• 11:06
  He was some little schmuck.
• 11:07
  They didn't know who he was.
• 11:08
  And they really put him through the ringer.
• 11:10
  Oh, really?
• 11:10
  And they accepted him.
• 11:11
  Like he earned his place on that team.
• 11:13
  Right.
• 11:13
  And he wanted to go to KC.
• 11:15
  OK.
• 11:15
  So for the January term, we applied for Kingston College and they accepted him.
• 11:21
  And it was a culture shock for my son.
• 11:25
  So your son at this point, he's been homeschooled
• 11:28
  Yeah, well, he went to school a little bit in Canada.
• 11:30
  Yep.
• 11:30
  Then he went to Mona Prep for a time.
• 11:32
  Right.
• 11:32
  Then a little bit of Creative Kids.
• 11:34
  Right.
• 11:34
  And then through COVID, I homeschooled him.
• 11:36
  Homeschooled.
• 11:36
  And then we do a little bit of Hillel and then we get to KC.
• 11:39
  Yeah.
• 11:40
  And that becomes a culture shock.
• 11:41
  Well, he was the only white boy for 2000 black boys.
• 11:44
  OK.
• 11:45
  There was one albino kid he told me.
• 11:47
  Which is not a white person working.
• 11:49
  No.
• 11:50
  And they beat him every single day.
• 11:52
  Physically?
• 11:53
  They beat him.
• 11:54
  Really?
• 11:55
  But my son is not, and he fought back and made his friends.
• 11:59
  But they beat him every single day.
• 12:01
  How long did he stay at KC?
• 12:03
  For two years.
• 12:04
  Getting beaten?
• 12:05
  No, no, no, no.
• 12:06
  No, like he had friends on the lacrosse team.
• 12:08
  Okay.
• 12:09
  Then like one day the lacrosse kid showed up and was like, who said they were going to box Beckham?
• 12:13
  And some kid's like, not me, but I'm going to box Beckham.
• 12:16
  And that kid just boxed that.
• 12:17
  So the lacrosse kid just, he was a sixth former, just boxed that kid.
• 12:20
  And so it got a little better.
• 12:22
  And then he made friends and it would get a lot better.
• 12:24
  Okay.
• 12:24
  So then he'd at least have his group of friends.
• 12:26
  Right.
• 12:26
  And then so it was more regular bullying.
• 12:29
  It wasn't just...
• 12:30
  Targeted.
• 12:30
  Yeah.
• 12:31
  Okay.
• 12:31
  So people who are willing to visit the States, they still wouldn't be willing to come?
• 12:36
  And to me, I'm much more worried going to the States.
• 12:40
  We have Coronation Market.
• 12:41
  People are, you know, on edge about Coronation Market.
• 12:46
  So yeah, sometimes bad things happen at Coronation Market.
• 12:49
  There are sometimes shootings at Coronation Market.
• 12:51
  Sure.
• 12:52
  But I've gone every Thursday for years.
• 12:55
  You go to Coronation Market?
• 12:56
  I want to go together.
• 12:57
  Check you out, babe.
• 12:58
  And it's a beautiful place.
• 13:00
  It's probably one of my favorite places in Jamaica because it's so human.
• 13:03
  Right.
• 13:03
  Back to that sense of humanity.
• 13:05
  You can stand there and just see humanity.
• 13:09
  To me, it almost at its core.
• 13:10
  No one's pretending.
• 13:11
  Are they still giving you foreign prices at Coronation?
• 13:14
  No, they know.
• 13:14
  We were past that.
• 13:15
  We passed it.
• 13:17
  Unless it's new vendors, we can pass that.
• 13:20
  And my husband's always been very good at negotiating, so he never accepted those prices.
• 13:25
  So there was no point in your journey that you reconsidered that move?
• 13:28
  No.
• 13:30
  Do you think that everyone, like I always say, a bit like Jamaican culture in the sense that we kind of live on the extremes?
• 13:38
  You know, when we're super positive, we're super positive.
• 13:40
  When we really don't like something, we really don't like something.
• 13:43
  We don't do middle ground.
• 13:45
  I always say that Jamaica is not for everyone.
• 13:47
  It is not.
• 13:48
  Being at the bakery and seeing people come in, you see people that can't adjust to this way of life, who get so frustrated with something as simple as clearing a container.
• 13:57
  Mmm.
• 13:57
  I've seen a Canadian man who came here with his Vietnamese wife lose his shit.
• 14:03
  What do you mean?
• 14:04
  He left videos warning expats never to come to Jamaica before he boarded the plane on TikTok.
• 14:10
  Why?
• 14:11
  Because it ruined him.
• 14:13
  In what way?
• 14:14
  It's really hard to quantify and put into words.
• 14:17
  Sure.
• 14:19
  You come here and you're used to doing things, let's say, at this beat.
• 14:25
  Right.
• 14:26
  Okay, you can go a little faster.
• 14:27
  Sure.
• 14:28
  You can go a little slower.
• 14:29
  But your whole life, you and your nervous system have always worked between this.
• 14:34
  Whatever this is, it moves a little bit.
• 14:36
  Right.
• 14:37
  When things work like this, and you're taking these roads, and this is our destination.
• 14:44
  You're used to always, you're coming here.
• 14:48
  But in Jamaica, you're going to go here.
• 14:50
  It's going to take time.
• 14:51
  You're going to do some loops.
• 14:53
  But you're going to end up somewhere much greater.
• 14:54
  Okay.
• 14:56
  You have to have faith and gratitude.
• 14:58
  And surrender to that.
• 15:00
  And it will bring you places that you can't even imagine.
• 15:03
  But if you can't, you die and not like actually die, but your your love of life and all your good.
• 15:12
  Sorry, the good aspects that you have to give are robbed of you because you cannot function like this.
• 15:19
  A British woman came.
• 15:20
  I think it lasted a couple weeks.
• 15:22
  Literally weeks?
• 15:23
  Literally weeks.
• 15:24
  I saw her husband coming in every day.
• 15:26
  She had a job.
• 15:27
  And then he's like, we're leaving.
• 15:28
  She just, she can't do it.
• 15:29
  Oh, wow.
• 15:31
  So I've seen, you know, an in-between.
• 15:33
  So I think that woman and that man from Canada were probably the...
• 15:35
  Were the extreme.
• 15:36
  No, because the phone and the, never come here!
• 15:39
  Like it was... Then you have me being like, okay, bye.
• 15:42
  We don't want you here.
• 15:43
  We good.
• 15:43
  We good.