“Get up and go again” – Jamaican style
Cover story from the Summer 2009 issue of 7 Bends of the Shenandoah Valley Magazine …
Reinventing Yourself
Winchester, Virginia — How often have you felt that the juncture your life has careened into, well…that it’s not well suited for you?
At points like these, we just pick ourselves up and change in whatever way is called for to get to a new place. That’s re-inventing yourself at the most basic level. Being the master of your own life. It’s seeing opportunity and being open to receive guidance and goodness in full.
Lloyd Washington’s life as a restaurateur – and a true friend to all his guests – began a little less than 40 years ago in Jamaica. His “Mom and Pop” owned a meat store and grocery, and were sellers in the market in St. Catherine – situating their meats near a busy street. His mother, especially, was well known on the Island for her delicious “pattys” (they’re meat pies, Jamaican-style). His folks also owned a furniture store in Astley where they sold bags, plastic containers, and household goods, including spoons and knives.
Entrepreneurism in his blood
So, Lloyd grew up among entrepreneurs, and became one without trying; he never imagined any other way. Like his parents, he looked for “gaps” between what was available and what people needed. That was his brand of market research – observation, and then action.
“To me, being able to make adjustments in your life – based on the type of curved balls life throws at you, is what re-invention is all about,” Lloyd, now 40 years old, shares. In an interview at one of his two restaurants, Tropical Island Coffee & Cafe, at 39 West Piccadilly Street in Winchester, Virginia, Lloyd explains that although he felt obligated to follow in his parents’ footsteps and help run their businesses, and to take over the management of them someday, he felt an equal, or even greater, urging to also “strike out on his own.”(His other restaurant, “Jamaica, Jamaica,” is in Herndon, Virginia.)
“I was always known to be a busy person. All my life I don’t remember a time where I didn’t have anything to do. A dozen activities were always waiting for me,” he says, with a confident – yet playful – twinkle in his eye. In his youth, Lloyd was no snoozer. At 5:30 a.m., he was up, helping his mother preparing goods for the large (4-square block) open air marketplace right down from their house.
And then, after assisting his family, he’d always “find time” to turn to his own pursuits. In one way or another, most of his early “jobs” involved working with animals – and relying on them for his livelihood.
First, he bred rabbits. He combined the largest breed of rabbit, the Belgian, with New Zealand white rabbits, which are known for producing more offspring than other rabbits. It was a combination that proved profitable. He sold rabbit meat, a delicacy on the Island, to big hotels – as much as 25 pounds to each hotel on Mondays and Fridays – the days that the open air marketplace just happened not to also be selling rabbit. Once again, he looked for the need – and even timed when he delivered it, as part of the way he ran his business, and his life.
The need of the community – local and global
“I’d go and observe the businesses in the area, and ask myself, ‘What’s needed?’”
Lloyd pauses and speaks deliberately as he searches for a good analogy to explain his winning approach.- about how he crafts one “unique proposition” after another out in the world.
“Many people, for example, see a McDonalds going up, so they think: ‘I should sell burgers, too.’ I don’t do that. I look for the need of the community.”
Other needs that Lloyd “saw,” and then provided, all before his 21st birthday, included a stint as a “herder” of cattle, as well as goats. Still, almost 20 years later, but this time in the U.S., he cooks up fresh-cut ox tails, for patrons in Winchester.
Lloyd makes sure to credit the people that helped him along the way – at those critical juncture points when he didn’t have enough resources of his own, yet saw an opportunity to make real. “Mr. Francis,” back in Jamaica placed enough trust in what Lloyd had done on his own that he fronted him the equivalent of $10,000 to help start his cattle raising business. (He had a vendor that would slaughter the cattle, and then he’d sell it to others – using timing and market immediacy to his advantage. “He (Mr. Francis) took faith in me. I guess I impressed him.”
Though you’d never know today that Lloyd was a “simple” herder in Jamaica, he learned much in that capacity that would serve him, and his family, well. He never thought of it as “biding his time” until something better came along. He gave it all of his attention and effort and purposely learned from every minute of the experience, resisting the urge to look back to the past, or too far ahead to the future. His “now” was everything.
“Herding takes a lot of patience, he says. “It’s not a short-term business. It takes time. If you can get one cattle to move in a direction, the rest will follow.” Lloyd was blessed. Though five years his senior, he always had his best friend, “Junior,” around to brainstorm “ a whole lot of ideas with.”
“Junior would say to me: ‘I’m here… Cool, good brother…Cool, we’re ready to go.’ And then, he’d be there to help me implement whatever we came up with.” Lloyd still talks through situations over the phone with Junior who remains in Jamaica.
“Thank you, mon!”
After opening and operating a successful restaurant called Little Boston Jerk Center – only half a mile from the open air market – another mentor would step into his life and offer him an opportunity to move just a little higher. ” He met Karen in Key Club. She believed in him, and gave him chances to “do stuff” that he had not done before, including public speaking. Whether it’s Rotary, Lions Club, Quota, Knights of Columbus, or any other service club, Lloyd is a believer in their ability to help transform the individual. “Key Club helped provide (an arena) for me to relate to people – not just from a business perspective, but on a more personal basis.”
In 2000, Lloyd was at one of those personal junctures in life. Karen encouraged him to “take a break” from all of this hard work, and “get out and explore.” Lloyd was realizing, through her influence, that there was so much more to life. He was successful in Jamaica; he had a good life. So, deciding to come to the states was not a financial necessity – like immigrants to America often act upon.
But, as Lloyd explains, the states were calling; they were the next launching pad that life was laying out before him. Lloyd says that he is disappointed – regardless of the outcome – only if he has not put himself fully into each moment. He wants to be able say unreservedly that he gave it all…that he learned to roll with the punches, and maintain his focus on the present moment just as closely as is humanly possible…and perhaps even more so.
The states were calling …and so was Jeanne
Indecision is not part of Lloyd’s vocabulary. “In a few short weeks, I gave managers at my businesses full authority to keep them going for me. I sold some of my businesses (including a pig meat operation he had also started), got my VISA from the U.S. Embassy at Karen’s direction, and set off for New York City.” Though not as acute a case of culture shock as what Crocodile Dundee experienced, Lloyd was affected by the major change in environment.
He remembers arriving in J.F.K. Not a soul in the states knew he was coming. It was all on faith. “I called my relatives in the Bronx. After I told them I was there, I heard screaming and shouting over the phone. They were happy I had come for a “few short-week’s visit.” They picked me up…and within a day in New York, they were hauling me to the wedding of a friend of theirs in Manhattan.”
Fairy tales do sometimes come true. He met Jeanne, a fellow Jamaican and fellow guest at the wedding, and they clicked immediately. She’s now his wife, and the mother of their three children – Stephan, 13; Adrian, 11; and Kaylee, 9.
Speaking about the way they met, Lloyd reflects: “You look back on life. And, you say, ‘Here I am, a country boy. Yes, but…I was bold enough to venture out and see what the world had to offer. I pretty much got there and she was waiting for me. It was raining so bad that day in Manhattan, I ended up spending the whole weekend at Jeanne’s house, helping her family pail out water!”
After they got hitched, Lloyd drove a cab in Manhattan for two years. With that experience under his belt, he was on a roll again, as he turned to “shuttling around” rock bands, old boxers, and Redskins football players for two-day stints – after he and his growing family moved to Ashburn, in Northern Virginia.
Who says 40 is young? Or old, for that matter?
It’s true …experience doesn’t discriminate based on age. As “Mr. Washington” relays: “I always say that the world is like an oyster. You never know what’s in it.” Truly much more than one can ever know.
When asked if he gets discouraged, Lloyd responds right away. “Sure. But, that reminds me of a story I heard in Jamaica when I was seven years old. I’ve held on tightly to that memory all this time.
Our life is a pearl. You go within and reflect. You go into your cocoon. You ask yourself, ‘What is my cause or reason for distress?” Then, I make a conscious choice. I tell myself, as long as I act, and keep moving forward, I truly live…and in that alone, there’s hope. You have to let your spirit flow. We all have it in us. The possibilities are endless. There’s something else that is out there.”
Lloyd encourages all people to look around with an open mind – a mind that’s fluid…that doesn’t hold on too long to any given point without a deliberate, conscious and gracious reason to do so.”
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