Edose Ohen had an unconventional childhood. By elementary school, he was given a programming book by his father and told to study it, sparking an interest in information technology (IT) and robotics. Entrepreneurship was also in his blood. By the age of 12, Ohen was selling sweets to his classmates to make extra money. By the time Ohen got to college, he started a marketing company to promote events at the school, which progressed to organizing high-end events for his fraternity.
“My father has always been an entrepreneurial man and I believe the lessons he taught me earlier on in my life was my foundations for my entrepreneurial paths. He shifted me towards IT at a very young age, so I always knew I would be in IT. I also always knew I was going to be in oil and gas because I idolized my father and he was an oil and gas man,” says Ohen.
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After graduating at the University of Houston with a degree in management and information systems, Ohen’s prediction came true. His first job combined his IT skills with his passion for the oil and gas industry.
“I graduated in 2009, which was the height of the economic recession in the States, so I sent out my resumes to hundreds of companies and I did not receive any feedback. Finally, there was a mid- to large-sized international oil and gas company, and it just so happened that the hiring manager went to my university and we had some synergies. So I started working as a system administrator and four years later I worked my way up to an IT manager.”
Ohen began to feel like he had reached a glass ceiling. It was time to do something different.
“In 2013, I started my MBA, concentrating on supply chain and operation management. When I was doing my MBA I was watching a show on CNBC called ‘How I Made My Millions’ and it was one of my favorite shows. There was a segment about these guys who opened a gourmet doughnut shop. I was like why would you open a gourmet doughnut shop?”
“I watched them and I was like these guys had a plan. So I said let me go to the top 10 doughnut shops out there and every single one of them had a line outside the door. I looked around and I couldn’t find anybody that did it in my area, so I said why not?” says Ohen.
Ohen got some close family and friends together and raised $300,000 to start his new dream, Glazed The Doughnut Cafe.
“It took about two years to get it off the ground. We had about 2,000 people come to the grand opening and the first six months was a total disaster. We could not keep up with demand and we could not create enough products.”
“I had this perfect staffing plan and perfect projection and it was absolutely terrible. It stabilized after year one and we just recently opened our second location which is also growing,” says Ohen.
The biggest challenge for Ohen was managing his own expectations.
“I was so adamant about my business plan. I had all this predictive analysis saying we anticipate we are going to need flour because we plan on selling so many doughnuts a day and trying to force that to happen. But the thing is, you don’t know, you can’t tell. Somebody can wake up and say I want a doughnut today or not, so just trying to understand that there is a complete difference between what you think can happen and what actually happens was difficult.”
With his doughnut business set up, Ohen was ready for his next move.
“One thing I learned from my father was that he always preached diversification. Mitigation from the effects of the economic cycle was how he survived for so many years and thrived in business,” says Ohen.
That sparked the move into IT infrastructure and services. Ohen set up Alfa Dando, which is the parent company to his internet business. The first brand under that portfolio is Wireless NG.
“We have a company called Wireless NG that we are looking to roll out in Abuja and Benin City. It is focused on information technology solutions, network engineering, procurement, design, wireless communication, and radios,” he says.
For the past three years, Wireless NG has provided communication platforms for the Nigerian Gas Pipeline and Transportation Company and Ohen hopes to create a nationwide network soon.
Ohen is building a diversified empire and, unlike his doughnuts, there doesn’t seem to be any holes in his plan.

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From Gourmet Doughnuts To Grand Deals

For some food is seen as art, for others music is an art form.
Ignatius Anayawa has fused the two at the Misty Jazz Restaurant and Café in Lusaka. Earlier this year, Misty’s won the International Hotel &amp; Restaurant Quality Award from the Global Trade Leaders’ Club (GTLC) in Madrid. The question is how this two-year-old establishment on the periphery of downtown Lusaka received this honor so soon?
The answer lies in Anayawa’s innovation. The idea and concept of the establishment was born out of his love for jazz and his desire to combine music with food. It was also important to Anayawa that the music was performed live. There are very few venues where one can have a meal with good live music playing in the background. The interior décor and ambience of Misty’s is more likely to be found in Johannesburg than Lusaka.
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The biggest challenge in establishing Misty’s was finding an environment where the music could compliment the cuisine. The venue had to be suitable for jazz to be the core of the ambience. The menu also had to complement the music.
When entering Misty’s, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a gallery of jazz artists’ photographs. You would also be forgiven if you thought the menu was a jazz photo album. It was designed by the Vice President of the South African Chef Association, to specifications of the concept of fusing jazz and food.
No detail was spared in establishing this top notch venue. The walls and floor were soundproofed, the fabric of the upholstery and furniture had to complement the venue’s acoustics and the ceiling had to be an ideal height for live music. The purple color scheme and the gold framing of black and white pictures initially jars the senses, but eventually grows on you. The pictures behind the stage, featuring New York and New Orleans skylines, add a cosmopolitan vibe. The venue boasts sound equipment from the United States and a piano from Britain. The sound engineer’s booth is suitable for live broadcasts and recording live performances. Every Sunday, a Lusaka radio station broadcasts live from the restaurant.
This minute detail makes Misty’s difficult to replicate and the unique brand is being established in Kampala and Accra. Another innovation in the Misty’s concept lies in the intention to adapt it to the different night lifestyles of African cities. The venue in Kampala will have live music being performed in the bar, which will have a much larger floor space than the restaurant. Lusaka’s venue will give more space to the restaurant.
Despite these differences, some consistency will be maintained and the venues in Kampala and Accra will be fitted by the same team that worked in Lusaka. More often than not, the materials for the fittings are imported.
In Lusaka, the venue will be in a newly opened shopping mall on the outskirts of the city center. The restaurant and stage takes up more than 60% of the floor space and the venue has the capacity to seat 115 patrons comfortably. Fifty percent of the venue was financed by Anayawa and his wife, the other half came from the bank. It is projected to take three years to break even, and so far the business is on course to hit this target. A definite sign of the success of the Misty’s brand is the fact that patrons of six different nationalities have expressed an interest to franchise the concept in their home countries.
The factor that sets Misty’s apart is its ability to deliver both food and music of the highest quality. The restaurant has hired an experienced executive chef from South Africa, and the menu includes signature hearty dishes such as braised oxtail in a rich red wine sauce, grilled French trimmed lamb cutlets, stewed beef, beef fillet with a white wine and mushroom jus, and tempura prawns. Excellent music is ensured by having band members on the restaurant’s payroll. They rehearse every morning, besides Mondays, and perform every night. On Fridays and Saturdays, the band performs with guest artists that are fit for the venue.
The challenges that Misty’s has encountered include being the victim of its own success. Patrons tend to enjoy themselves so much that they spend their entire evening at the venue, with little to no turnover at the tables. This limits the revenue that can be made in one night. This tendency also presents another problem. The venue is busiest on Fridays and Saturdays when patrons can be most relaxed. However, the introduction of the live radio broadcasting on Sundays has improved business on this night.
Misty’s is also introducing themed nights and using social media to effectively reach its target audience. In addition, as a member of the GTLC, Misty’s will be featured in marketing and publications that the club puts out.
Another challenge that Misty’s has encountered is the sourcing of food which, more often than not, has to be imported. This means that the food is more expensive than it should be, squeezing the food margins. However, this has spawned another business opportunity. Misty’s imports its food in bulk and supplies other restaurateurs.
Given the effort and expertise that has gone into establishing the Misty Jazz Restaurant and Café brand, there is no doubt that it is meant for those that enjoy the finer things i

Music  To Your Mouth

A few days before her debut as a flash restaurateur, Noji Matutu Gaylard was worried about the turnout.
“I hope people come,” she said as we maneouvered through the potholed streets of old Johannesburg seeking supplies.
She needn’t have worried. She received close to a hundred visitors on the day, and rustled up a neat profit.
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Before the event, each ingredient had already been accounted for thrice over by Gaylard, formerly a media researcher by profession. She was meticulous, only free-range eggs and Norwegian smoked salmon would do. The success of her menu depended on the most delicate detail.
These were the beginnings of Gaylard’s Restaurant Day. Founded as Ravintolapäivä in 2011, the concept, now a global movement, was the brainchild of a group of Finnish entrepreneurs looking to give anyone with a knack for cuisine the chance to run their own restaurant, bar, cafe or food stall on a single day. Over the last three years, Restaurant Day has become a culinary movement celebrating food culture from living room restaurants to front-yard cafes. On the Sunday in August that Gaylard opened for business, over 2,000 pop-ups across the world were doing the same.
But her’s was the only one happening in Africa.
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Perfection on a plate
It was a brunch special. The menu was diverse with additions from other burgeoning chefs in the neighborhood. The waffles were diligently pressed and plated by Belgian pastry chef Kris Van Damme, who went to night school for six years while holding down a day job as a social worker to ply his trade. This was the first time he and Gaylard met, in her kitchen, and he went straight to work churning out waffles and innovative pastries.  His offerings were some of the most popular items on the menu.
Manning the coffee station was Eevastiina Hyvönen who was, appropriately, Finnish. She had labored the night before over the dough for the cinnamon rolls. The salmon bagels were churned out by Gaylard’s husband Joseph. And her eldest daughter had recruited friends to help with waitressing. The kitchen seemed deceptively chaotic but discipline was maintained throughout service. Gaylard’s marketing campaign had amply helped. In attendance was a heady mix of friends and strangers. The backpackers had come because of the menus she left at their usual haunts, the friends had come to support and the children had come to play with her little girl. It was, for many, the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Reflecting on her day as a restaurant owner, Gaylard says: “It was great fun.” Her punters were satisfied with the menu and the little touches: a DJ to set the mood, a playground to distract the kids and a special buffet for the famished. It must have done the trick because her cash registers kept ringing. Gaylard is planning a second Restaurant Day in November. If that succeeds, she is considering opening a food truck.
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Tag: Café

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

From Gourmet Doughnuts To Grand Deals

Music To Your Mouth

Ain’t No Flash In The Pan