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Church View Int’l Hotel celebrates 40 years
By Leon Suseran
One of Berbice and Guyana’s oldest and more prominent hotels, the Church View International Hotel and Bar is currently celebrating 40 years of existence. The family business, pioneered by the Bhookmohans of New Amsterdam, was officially opened on August 1, 1974.
Present day Church View Int’l Hotel, Bar, Restaurant and Conference Hall.
What Church View was like when it was purchased.
Proprietrix Ms. Jenny Bhookmohan, wife of the late proprietor, stated that her husband, Ram, who was employed with Bata Shoe Store back then at Rose Hall Town, rented the building from the Baburams. He subsequently bought it.
Ms. Bhookmohan said that the business that they acquired, which was already named Church View (then a Guest House) and located at Church Street in the town, “was in a run down state.” Lots of renovations had to be done as well as sprucing up of the building.
She added that the family was quite excited to start the operations of the facility, especially herself, “since it gave me the opportunity to learn managing, accounting, decorating, everything.” There were only nine rooms back then compared to 20 today. The building, over the years, has undergone immense renovations and extensions so as to better serve the clientele.
New Amsterdamers would remember the popular Church View Disco, at a time when disco was the going thing in Guyana. The disco, however, stopped functioning in the 80’s. Ms. Bhookmohan’s daughter, Prenita, said that the restaurant used to do pretty well. “Every day people would come and have lunch— three- course meals.”
She added that a gym and conference hall were added to the facility offerings over the years. The hall, she stated, accommodates over 100 persons, for weddings, birthdays and meetings.
The Bhookmohan family – owners of the 40-year-old business today.
The bar is open 24 hours a day. A gift shop was added over the years. That gift shop is extra to the popular Church View Gift Shop located at Lot 1 Main Street, New Amsterdam. Prenita related that currently they have a 15-member hotel staff.
After Mr. Bhookmohan passed away a few years ago, his wife, daughter and son took up the management of the day-to-day affairs of the hotel.
Several more hotels have sprung up in New Amsterdam and in Berbice over the past decade. Prenita said that things are a bit slow and credited the Berbice River Bridge for some of that. “The restaurant is slow and the bar is slow. We used to get companies staying for long periods of time, but since they have the bridge, they go back to Georgetown— they don’t stay. But we still have the regulars— there are some people, when they come, they just want to stay at Church View.”
“You cannot complain that you are not making business, but it has its time and season…like during the Berbice Expo, we are booked for that,” Prenita added.
The young Bhookmohan is working assiduously to bring back the disco. “We have work going on all the time— plus we want to do a car park too.”
She personally trains the staff, she added. “And when you get them and train them and make them sign a contract,” they would stay only for a short time. Prenita trains persons for the job as front desk attendants, “and they take the training and they would go somewhere else.
When all is said and done, when one mentions the name of the town of New Amsterdam, it is synonymous with the name ‘Church View Hotel.’
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