HOW LONG ARE YOU WILLING TO WAIT to sink your teeth into some delectable ham cutters?
Five minutes, half hour, an hour?
Situated in Beckles Road, St Michael, is a little shop known as much for its queues as for its tasty and juicy ham cutters.
Though no specific name adorns the external surface of this shop, it is hard to miss. With a familiar fragrance of mouth-watering hams wafting through the open doors, it is guaranteed that passers-by will be tempted to stop in.
In an industry with many options for a bellyful, that sort of dedication to an eatery and a willingness by customers to brave lines is rare. However, it isn’t a peculiar sight for regulars wanting some of the most demanded ham cutters in Barbados.
People travel to Beckles Road by any means of transport from any point on the island just for a taste of ham cutters from Sherwin Reece’s shop.
“I can’t tell you why people love my hams so,” the very reserved proprietor told the DAILY NATION with a little laughter.
“I don’t do nothing different to nobody else but yet some people will say I got ‘it’. If they come a day and can’t get none, they would come back the same day or another time. Maybe it is the amount of ham people get. Some people tell me my hand heavy. I would like to get them light but my mother hands were heavy too.
“I like to see people get their money’s worth. That is just the way I is and I probably can’t change now because it too late,” Reece said during an interview at his home, which is attached to the shop.
On any given day, an estimated eight picnic hams in cutters are sold there. Regulars know though that one must come early because very often, they are sold out just shy of three hours. So even before the doors are
opened at anytime around 9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m., people are already seen huddled to the side under the window placing their orders.
He has had sought-after ham cutters for 30 years and before him, his father Elliott Reid from the early 1970s.
The family’s ham-cutter trade began when Reid, a sugar boiler at Foursquare Plantation, needed to find a means to support his family after crop season. Living at that time in the heart of The City on St Michael’s Row, Reid decided to set up a little attachment to his home.
“He started out by selling ham cutters, cheese cutters and pork cutters and it was in no time that he became well known for them. So he worked in the crop season and after crop over he would run the shop,” Reece recounted.
But at that time, just a teen still attending the Modern High School, Reece’s sisters were more favoured in the kitchen and he was obligated to watch them from a distance, envious and thinking his time would not come soon. Unbeknown to his father, however, his mother secretly allowed him to bake some of the hams on a few occasions.
Reece said he couldn’t remember if his father tasted one of the hams which he baked, but whatever the reason, when his mother died and the family moved to their present location, dad allowed him more time in the kitchen.
“When we come up here it was only me and him then; my sisters would come in between. I get more time to learn from him and then some experience on my own. I learnt that I had a knack for doing this thing, and according to customers, I did it really good.”
So three years ago, upon the death of his father, the 53-year-old was able to smoothly take on the mantle of running the shop.
With finances of people somewhat more restricted than in the past, Reece quickly learnt about the difficulty of running a business. With prices going through the roof but with a determination not to fail, he did everything to cut costs while still maintaining the quality of his product.
“Some days were hard, rough to the extent that on some days I felt I would get up and go. Then on other days I questioned why am I really in this for but I guess that goes with the territory,” he said.
Some have told him that he has outgrown the classic shop, but he disagrees.
“I satisfied with where I am. I live within my means and I don’t really want to go nowhere else. I don’t know what gine happen down the road but sometimes that expansion thing that people does want you get into is be trouble. I don’t want so much trouble, that is the truth.
“There ain’t got many shops like this anymore; everybody does have to put up barricades. You can’t really stop certain things from happening but when life goes on, you have to roll with it,” Reece added. (SDB Media)