By Sharda Bacchus
Devastated and still in shock, young businessman, Mario Joseph is determined to move forward and rebuild after a fire ravaged his business establishment on Sheriff Street, Georgetown on Tuesday night.
He is hoping that Mario’s Juice Bar and Grill will be able to maintain its household name.
“We spent a lot of energy in building the brand so it’s not easy to let go. I think we may have achieved or were getting there in becoming a household name…So I would want to revive it and maintain that status,” the 32-year-old businessman told the News Room during an interview on Thursday.
A fire of electrical origin gutted the popular establishment just after 23:00 hrs minutes after the employees closed for the day.
A Guyana Fire Service (GFS) investigation revealed that the fire was caused by a component of an electric refrigerator that overheated.
Joseph estimates his losses to be in the millions; he said just six months ago, he renovated and expanded the business.
“…We renovated and brought the building forward and expanded it to the side, built an office so that we can be more comfortable and we bought a lot of equipment and we didn’t even get the full value out of it,” a distraught Joseph said.
He explained that he bought the refrigerator about three years ago and experienced issues with it in the past.
“It’s a stainless-steel chiller. It’s really big. It’s tall, almost reaches the ceiling and when you looked at it, it was basically gone. An 8-feet chiller reduced to just a little bit of rubble on the ground.
“We had problems with it before. We had to replace several parts on three different occasions, the last being the fan on the top and we didn’t get the original fan because those original chillers, they are not really readily available in Guyana or for parts. We would have substituted parts to make it work because it’s expensive equipment and you don’t just want to discard it,” Joseph told the News Room.
According to Joseph, the building is insured.
“…Today, I have to meet my insurance agent and see what the next steps are regarding that. I don’t know what adventure that’s going to be like… It’s a bit overwhelming still. It’s just been two days.
“It’s devastating. I was in shock and still am. It’s hard to focus on other tasks and think about the next steps when you feel like this…I just hope that I can manage the next steps and actually able to rebuild,” he said with tears settled in his eyes.
According to Joseph, on the night of the fire, he had just arrived home when he received the devastating phone call.
“Soon as I got that call, I got dressed and I headed down. By the time I got there, I saw the fire engines and the police and the crowd and there was nothing I could do. I just stood there across the road and watched as everything unfolded.”
Apart from the Sheriff Street location, Joseph has a mobile operation at the University of Guyana (UG) Turkeyen campus. However, it has been out of operation for some time now since classes have not yet returned to normal.
“…I would hope that they would start in-person classes soon so that we can resume operations there. If I had that going, that would be a good momentum. A push to make sure I re-establish in Georgetown,” he said.
The business establishment has been in operation since 2020.
