KC Old Boy Opens First Jamaican Restaurant in China
by Glen Laman
Glendon Thompson (center) cuts the ribbon opening his restaurant in China.
KC Old Boy Glendon Thompson is the owner of the Cho-Cho Jamaican Restaurant which opened to much fanfare--including music by the Red Army Military band-- this summer in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, China.
Glendon attended KC in the early 1970’s. A math teacher, Mr. Anderson (he thinks) gave the best geometry lesson ever--a racy comparison of the legs of a triangle to ... well, he never forgot the lesson. He was head boy of form 4T1, the last form he attended at KC before migrating. He would go on to earn degrees in architecture and computer science at the City College of New York.
Glendon, who is part Chinese himself, pulled out all stops to ensure a successful launch of his restaurant in China. He even enlisted the help of another Jamaican, Atlanta caterer Carmen Allen who travelled to China to help train the employees.
A man of many talents, he has experience in the information technology, construction design/build, energy conservation and tourism fields. His professional career spans ownership, management, systems analysis, architectural design, planning, development, implementation and maintenance of several business systems, energy conservation and construction projects.
He is the managing director of Arcom Group, Inc. a construction design/build, energy and Information Technology enterprise. He is also the director for Peggy’s Bottom Retreat resort in Jamaica.
At present, he has several business initiatives involving Jamaica in the areas of renewable energy and tourism. He has already imported some evacuated tube solar water heaters into Jamaica and is looking into how the Chinese turn their farm wastes into energy/electricity and plans to invest in that in China and take a working model to Jamaica.
According to Glendon, “the tourism from China is the biggest thing that is going to hit the West in a very long time. I have already piqued some interest in Jamaica and the Caribbean. Jamaica is fortunate to be close to Cuba. The Chinese know Cuba already so Jamaica is easy for them to locate.”
You can read more about the opening of Glendon’s restaurant in China at the following links:
