Revamp of my restaurant to get more customers

Entrepreneur

About Me

In 2015, right after my graduation me and my husband Victor, used the balance of our savings and started our restaurant, a 45-seat breakfast café in Nairobi. With no restaurant experience, we put it all, and then some, on the line. We didn’t come from a lot of money. We put it together by the skin of our teeth, put up everything we had. Instead of working for someone else, we wanted to work for ourselves, follow our dreams, and risk it all.
The biggest challenge has been the competition, it is very high in Nairobi so you have to stand out and be unique so that you can get more customers. We have been having few customers of late and we are afraid that we might loose our special restaurant that is quite dear to our hearts. We have two kids now and it means we need to make it work and get the restaurant to make more profit.

My Business

We want to do more than get by. We want to be a force, a leader in the area. Right now we’re having a small share of the market. Every single day i go through everything. We also have a bookkeeper. We use Quickbooks to track the financials. It’s a challenge trying to maintain our labor costs. With the split level (we do deliveries as well), we have to have lots of people available.

I go over everything with a fine-toothed comb: in-house consumption, production, inventory, etc. I’m always looking for ways to save another shilling.
We love seeing the satisfaction on the customer’s face: they’re happy, and they are enjoying something you created. It’s a rewarding feeling. The satisfaction of the public’s reaction too. There are bad days, but as the old saying goes, this too shall pass. There have been more good days than bad. It’s getting easier too.

Another thing with employees: When you find good people, it’s rewarding to know that you have a good relationship and they are making a living. We’re supporting families here, and we are helping 10-some people work.
Our restaurant makes around Kshs 60,000 every month (its been really hard) and this is once we deal with the payroll, Food and beverage costs, Occupancy costs, and Controllable expenses. The kids have to go to public school because we cant afford a good school and we have to pay rent and the children's caregive as well. We rarely get to go out with the kids because of the late hours we have to work at the restaurant.

Loan Proposal

I will buy new comfy chairs for my customers to enjoy their food better. the chairs cost $15 each so it will be a working process until i get to purchase all of them.

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