http://www.royalgazette.com/siftology.royalgazette/Article/article.jsp?articleId=7d8772f30030008&sectionId=65

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        Published: July 14. 2008 08:08AM
    Lemon Tree changes hands after six years of success
    
    By Alex Wright
    
    The Lemon Tree Cafe has been taken over by a new management team, The Royal Gazette can exclusively reveal.
    
    Former Fairmont Southampton chief concierge Brendan Huttick is now running the popular eatery that was started from scratch six years ago by business partners Lee Uddin and Jean-Claude Garzia.
    
    It was an emotional send-off for Mr. Uddin and Mr. Garzia, having built and opened their enterprise in 2002, but they decided the time was right to sell up after they took over the lease for the Beau Rivage restaurant at the Newstead-Belmont Hills resort.
    
    "We decided that it would be better for us if we could concentrate on the hotel business, because it is a tremendously big operation here at Newstead-Belmont Hills," said Mr. Garzia.
    
    "Tourism in Bermuda has to get back to where it was and we need to bring it up, and with my reputation I can certainly make an impact on the tourism industry. Lee and myself decided to concentrate our efforts and make sure we can do a good job and start a new life here.
    
    "But we love The Lemon Tree — it is a fantastic place and it is still running well and the guys who took over are very nice people and if they need our help, we are here."
    
    Mr. Garzia said he and Mr. Uddin wanted to focus entirely on the new project at Newstead-Belmont Hills and so jumped at the chance to sell their stake in the company Gourmand Ltd. to former hotelier Mr. Huttick. "He was in the hotel business, so he knows all about customer service, which is good for us, knowing that the business is in safe hands," he said.
    
    Mr. Garzia, who has been working in the hotel and restaurant trade in Bermuda for the past 27 years, started off as a chef at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess in the 1980s, before moving on to become executive chef at Cambridge Beaches for 12 years, where he met Mr. Uddin, who was at wholesalers Viking Food at the time. The pair decided to go into business together.
    
    "He always had dinner with the chefs and he was actually a chef himself previously," Mr. Garzia said. "And then one day I decided I was ready to leave Cambridge Beaches and he left Viking Foods and we said: 'Why don't we open something?' and we created The Lemon Tree, which has been very successful.
    
    "We wish we could have kept it, but it would have been very hard for us because the business here at Newstead-Belmont Hills is really full-time — it is a seven-day-a-week operation and we do breakfast, lunch and dinner, room service, and a gift shop, as well as having parties and weddings on top of that, so we really have to give it 100 percent all the time."
    
    Mr. Garzia said his best memories of The Lemon Tree were the contact he had with his customers and the feeling of being one big family. Some of those customers are now turning up at Beau Rivage.
    
    "This is a great challenge to be part of something like this; one I have been waiting for for 27 years in Bermuda," he said. "It is very difficult to find the right place, but now we have it and we can succeed in the helping the future of tourism in Bermuda."
    
    Mr. Uddin said his favourite times were constructing the cafe, which has enjoyed a rich and varied history as a shoe shop in the 1940s and 1950s and then a woollen clothes store in the 1970s and 1980s, and building up the business from there.
    
    "It started from nothing — it was a little Scottish wool shop that Jean-Claude and I transformed — with the help of the Corporation of Hamilton, as well as designing the patio out the back," Mr. Uddin said.
    
    "It was all about building it and putting a lot of sweat into it — Jean Claude had never done construction before and when it came to knocking down walls and humping rubble out to the truck outside it almost killed him, which we can laugh about today. We have made the Lemon Tree what it is today and it became a great success in a very short space of time.
    
    "Jean Claude and I would like to thank the Corporation of Hamilton for their help and vision for the City of Hamilton, for transforming the little Scottish wool shop to one of the most popular places in Hamilton.
    
    "We would also like to thank all of our loyal customer — without you we would have not been the success we were and we look forward to seeing you across the water at our new home in Beau Rivage Restaurant."
    
    Mr. Huttick was chief concierge at the Fairmont Southampton for the past two years and had a six-year stint as assistant manager at the Pompano Beach Club prior to that. He said business had been going well since he took charge.
    
    "Everything is going great so far — we are enjoying it up here," he said. "It is something I had been thinking about for a while and it worked out with the previous owners and it all came to a good conclusion that worked for both parties.
    
    "The customers can look forward to what they enjoyed at the Lemon Tree up until now and we are looking to maintain and keep up the high standards that Lee and Jean Claude put in place here." 

• Source/Citation References (1)
  • Individual: Brendan Allen Huttick