So the story goes that a restaurateur was asked the question “What is a good restaurant?” The restaurateur grappled with the answer, which he knew, but wanted to figure out if there was an alternative to his answer. After all shouldn’t there be straightforward criteria like food, service, the wine-list and even the ambiance and decor. Now he knew that all of these were important but not up there with what he knew the answer to be!! Which was “Any restaurant that makes money is a good restaurant”
As chefs and restaurateurs we are bound to serve a few different masters. Firstly our customers, secondly profit and the bottom line and finally God forbid, our egos. To achieve a balance is no mean feat and we realised early this year that we needed an Executive Chef as part of our plan to achieve successful growth. Enter Chef Jonothan Duiker. Jono as he is known has joined the team after 5 years abroad to ensure that our passion for great food is taken to another level while the strong management team keeps this growing business on a steady course. Sounds really simple, have a plan, take on a great new chef, tick a few boxes and we are in the pound seats!!
If only life was that simple!! So we armed a Chef Jono with an old trick!!
Here at Cafe del Sol we subscribe to the principle of “kaizen” which is a Sino-Japanese word and means “change for the better”. Kaizen is also known as continuous improvement and it is an approach to work where we systematically attempt to achieve small, incremental positive changes in processes in order to create major impact on the working culture of the team. Some management gurus refer to this program as Get Better at Getting Better!! We endeavour to instill this process on the kitchen and on the floor and it is through this philosophy that we have been able to grow and develop an inordinate number of unskilled staff, making them the envy and the employment target of many of our competitors. Our staff are encouraged to figure out better ways of doing things, to work smarter and not too let the process overwhelm them.
In the words of Emile Coue “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” !!