Guyana Chronicle New York Edition Week-ending March 31, 2017
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Johnny Rockets opens doors AS GUYANA fast food industry continues to grow, Johnny Rockets has been added to the competition, and will be officially open to the public on Thursday following a launch on Monday night at its Hadfield Street location. Johnny Rockets is an international restaurant franchise that offers high quality, innovative menu items including fresh, never frozen 100 per cent beef, cooked-to-order hamburgers, Veggie Boca® burger, chicken sandwiches, crispy fries and rich, delicious hand-spun shakes and malts. The restaurant has over 340 franchises in 30 countries across the globe. The local franchise of the all-American restaurant is co-owned by Preeta Mangar and her husband Ameir Ahmad, who on Thursday night hosted a gathering
of their close family and friends to try out the restaurants wide array of options. And the invitees just could not get enough of the delicious treats. “The menu goes from the very basic to a lot of additives; these days’ persons like to add stuff to their burger depending on their preference, so the menu has a lot of that. We also carry a veggie burger. There’s the grilled chicken too for persons who are watching their weight, and with the shakes you can add in M&M’s, peanut butter, or Reese’s. So the menu is very diverse; it has something for everybody,” Mangar shared as she told the media a little bit about what the restaurant will be bringing to the Guyana fast food market. Mangar said that despite being categorised as fast food the franchise is more
than that. “They don’t see themselves as fast food, because the burgers are made to order. With Johnny Rockets their theme is a 1950s diner. It gives you that retro feel; it has a lot of character to it, it’s cheerful. They stand for a very clean and sparkling restaurant,” she said.
The decision was made to bring a Johnny Rockets to Guyana because of the franchise’s hamburger and milkshake menu, which caters to an area that has been somewhat lacking in Guyana. “So far in Guyana there’s a lot of chicken, a lot of pizza, and we know a lot
of people like burgers, so we figured why not. Burgers are great Guyanese love them; it was perfect. We asked a lot of people what they thought and we had a lot of good review,” Mangar explained. The franchise starts off with the one location, which will be opened from 8am – 11pm daily from
Monday – Saturday. Mangar said the hours may change as the business continues its market research and decides on the best hours for the business. The business has already begun giving back to the Guyanese community by already providing over 50 jobs.
Soldiers register for duplex housing programme SCORES of soldiers enrolled for the Ministry of Communities duplex housing unit programme when Minister within the Ministry of Communities, Valarie Adams-Patterson, and team visited Base Camp Stephenson Wednesday. Speaking at the Colonel Ulric Pilgrim Lecture Hall at the Timehri, East Bank Demerara base, Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) Chief Executive Officer, Leon Saul, said the authority is working to provide housing for the working class citizens, including soldiers.
He said the CH&PA has about 20,000 applications in its system and the drive is not to distribute house lots but to provide housing units. Duplexes, town houses and condominiums, will be built for the soldiers to promote family-oriented life. Minister Adams-Patterson said state employees, low and middle income earners and youths will be captured in the Government’s housing programme. And soldiers will get an opportunity to own their own home, she said. Some 28,000 house lots
across the country are unoccupied and the Government has made it clear that it would not be allocating lots to persons without putting down proper infrastructures such as water, light and roads. The lack of these, Minister Adams-Patterson said, is one of the primary causes for persons not building on the lots allocated to them. This, she said has caused the Government to revise the housing programme so that beneficiaries will gain in a more practical way, and on that note, urged the soldiers to “come on board” to get
their “portion of the pie”. Once the application form is filled, the soldiers will have to visit the Min-
istry’s Brickdam, Georgetown head office with relevant documents. There, they will be interviewed,
issued a letter and placed on the priority list to benefit from the housing unit programme.