The owner of Ms. Martha’s Caribbean Kitchen is Martha Laurencin, a native West Indian. Ms. Laurencin has been around the kitchen since her very early years. Having grown up on the Caribbean Island of St. John Virgin Islands, Ms. Laurencin learned to cook by watching her family members and always being up close and assisting by handing off ingredients, assisting in prepping foods, mixing up the goods and cleaning while family members cooked. Weekends were used as practice as she baked and cooked for the neighborhood kids, and always being willing to cook for others and family when there was an opportunity to do so. Ms. Laurencin has been in the food business in various capacities having worked for Hyatt Hotels in various positions, working with private catering company and then being in the Conference and Events Department at her church and eventually starting her own business. Ms. Martha’s passion for cooking and serving came more so by serving others wherever there was a need. Ms. Laurencin carried that passion into adult hood by always cooking and sharing her native dishes with her co-workers and her church family by serving up various dishes to break bread with others. In 2009, while working as a social worker with Arizona State Government, Division of Children Services, the Department, faced large deficits and opted to furlough workers down to 30 hours a week. Given the financial loss to her household, this led her to tap into her natural skills to make up for the loss. Eventually that led to catering office lunches on Fridays and then eventually opening a catering business and then the opening of Caribbean Marketplace Kitchen and Grill. Ms. Laurencin has always had a strong desire to cook and serve others, as she recognized at an early age that food brings people together and makes their souls happy. Ms. Laurencin’s ultimate desire is to prepare her dishes with such love and attentiveness that it exudes that love to the receiver and it satisfies their souls. Ms. Laurencin believes that Soul satisfying good food brings people together and causes great connections that lead to happy and peace loving times. That is the connection that causes customers to return over and over.