When Natalie Lamming left TT for the US at the age of 18 to attend college, like so many other legal immigrants, finding employment became a necessity. The job she found, though, was actually one she had frowned upon then.

"I worked in restaurants just to make ends meet...It was the easiest job to get at the time.

"People tend to look down on restaurant work and trade jobs, and if you had asked me, when I was going to school if this is what I'd be doing, I'd tell you 'no,'" the former Bishop Anstey High School student told WMN.

Twenty-seven years later, she works in the same industry – from waitressing, bartending and managing different restaurants, to business owner since 2012.

"I have two restaurants under my belt," both located in Brooklyn, New York.

Savannah Spice is named after the Queen's Park Savannah, and Sebastian Spices and Slices is named after her 11-year-old son.

"I got tired of working for people; my agenda for the future was never to stay on that path. I think that's why I didn't settle for being an employee. They (my employers) were benefiting from the things I was bringing to the business."

She said opening the first restaurant was not easy because she didn't have access to loans and she had no family inheritance. She raised funds to invest in the venture by planning events, using the contacts she made while working at the restaurants to her advantage.

"The Queen's Park Savannah represents a lot of things for me. My grandmother lived in Belmont, my mom worked on Jerningham Avenue, my dad used to go horse racing, so the savannah is like a staple.

"It is one of the perfect landmarks; it represents the culture – the Carnival, if you want something good to eat, if you want to relax."

The restaurant was formerly named The Savannah, and Lamming said she's made a number of adjustments over the years as funding became more readily available.

"Before it was more like a trendy bar where people could get some food, but now it's more like a trendy restaurant. I name all the foods and drinks off colloquial names, like Zesser and Mr and Mrs Fete, Miss Dorothy Saltfish; and we find creative ways to do things with food. We do a lot of the traditional foods you will find around the savannah."

She later rebranded it Savannah Spice because her husband is Grenadian.

"We tend to use a lot of their spices and incorporate it into the foods – from mango chow to curry crab to oil down. We do it the Trini way and the Grenadian way...

"Sometimes we do some fusions like oxtail lo mien, and we do a Sunday lunch – pie, stewed chicken, calalloo, you know what Sunday lunch is like in Trinidad and Tobago."

She said Sebastian Spices and Slices was opened last year and sells pizzas with anything Caribbean – saltfish, oxtail, breadfruit.

"Everything is customised. We even do customised lasagne and pies."

But its main objective is to set her son up for future success in whatever path he chooses to follow.

[caption id="attachment_1150592" align="alignnone" width="1024"] New York-based Sebastian Spi