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- 2012-10-15 16:02:36
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“I’m really, really sad. But with every end, there is a new beginning,” says Igor Myakotin, a second-year student at AUBG, about “Casa Adria”, the fine dining restaurant that closed down this Friday, October 12.
Frequented by members of both the faculty and the student body of the American University, ”Casa Adria’s” sudden shutdown was a surprise for many. However, Mark Waterhouse, the owner of the restaurant and head of the dining services at AUBG, openly shared the reasons for the close-down while looking back on the experiences he has had running this business. He is still optimistic about the eventual resuscitation of his fine diner.
A resident of Manchester, Waterhouse left the UK twenty years ago and moved to Portugal where he worked for the largest local hotel group and where he also met his future wife, a Blagoevgrad native. When the service industry was hit hard by the financial crisis, Waterhouse moved to his wife’s hometown, eventually starting a fine-dining business of his own.
[caption id="attachment_7027" align="alignleft" width="345" caption="Photo Courtesy of www.visitblagoevgrad.com"]
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How did you come up with “Casa Adria”?
My wife has her own business importing […] female nail products. She was doing this lady’s nails one day, chatting to her like they do and she said: “My husband’s getting a bit bored, he’s getting quite annoyed that you can’t get a good meal anywhere and the food’s terrible and he’d like to start his own restaurant but there’s nothing really that has taken his eye”. And this lady said “Oh, I live in a small complex next to a restaurant that’s closed down.” So [the lady] put my wife in touch with people that own the building. We went to look at it and it was called “Casa Adria”. So we thought we’ll keep the name. They’ve got nice fine dining – French cuisine, small portions, high class - which might have worked in Sofia but it was never going to work in Blagoevgrad. So they were open for just over a year, closed down and had been closed for eighteen months. So we thought, let’s keep the idea because we want good food, good quality. [We will] keep the name so that we don’t have to change the business model. We can take over the” Casa Adria” Facebook page and so forth. So that’s how it came about that we ended up there. We signed a one year contract.
[caption id="attachment_7028" align="alignright" width="227" caption="Photo Courtesy of www.vistiblagoevgrad.com"]
[/caption]
What has been your experience running the business?
Some very good times. It’s been fantastic to meet people. I felt isolated when I came here because nobody spoke English and a lot of Bulgarians didn’t want to speak English - they were embarrassed or whatever - and then suddenly there were people coming from the American University. Mark Wollemann and Melody Gilbert were one of the first ones and if you ever want to push a business, just get Melody involved. She told everybody. They had a fantastic meal, steak, and they had not been able to get a good stake, a good American steak, as they say. Slowly but surely we built up the business and probably more than half of the business is now AUBG.
What differentiated “Casa Adria” from the other restaurants in town?
Okay, that’s a very simple one. I’m from the service industry - the hotel industry is a service industry -you live or die on your clients. So my first, upmost thing was that service was going to be impeccable. [It’s] difficult with the Bulgarian staff because the Bulgarian staff are not bothered about being tipped, because it’s not the Bulgarian culture. But I found some good staff; one [employee had] worked on a cruise ship so he knew how to serve people properly. They all had to speak English as well as Bulgarian. So that side was working well. The other side – even the good restaurants in town serve cheap nasty food. They buy cheap quality food. A lot of the times, they don’t know how to cook it properly. And when they think they are cooking a Mexican or a Chinese, they’ve never been outside of Bulgaria, and it’s the Bulgarian idea of how to cook it which isn’t the real way to cook it. So I thought I could do a better job.
So why is “Casa Adria” closing down?
Okay, it’s a very simple answer but a complex [one], which is always [the case]. The simple answer is that I signed for a one-year contract. I wanted to see how the business would run. I didn’t want to tie myself to a five-year contract. The one-year contract came to an end yesterday (October 10th). I would like to have carried it on. The owners have other ideas for the building. I have to walk away from the contract because it’s finished. It’s a simple answer but complex in the fact that I’ve got a big following of people - where do I go next, which no doubt is one of your questions back to me.
[/caption]
How did you come up with “Casa Adria”?
My wife has her own business importing […] female nail products. She was doing this lady’s nails one day, chatting to her like they do and she said: “My husband’s getting a bit bored, he’s getting quite annoyed that you can’t get a good meal anywhere and the food’s terrible and he’d like to start his own restaurant but there’s nothing really that has taken his eye”. And this lady said “Oh, I live in a small complex next to a restaurant that’s closed down.” So [the lady] put my wife in touch with people that own the building. We went to look at it and it was called “Casa Adria”. So we thought we’ll keep the name. They’ve got nice fine dining – French cuisine, small portions, high class - which might have worked in Sofia but it was never going to work in Blagoevgrad. So they were open for just over a year, closed down and had been closed for eighteen months. So we thought, let’s keep the idea because we want good food, good quality. [We will] keep the name so that we don’t have to change the business model. We can take over the” Casa Adria” Facebook page and so forth. So that’s how it came about that we ended up there. We signed a one year contract.
[caption id="attachment_7028" align="alignright" width="227" caption="Photo Courtesy of www.vistiblagoevgrad.com"][/caption]
What has been your experience running the business?
Some very good times. It’s been fantastic to meet people. I felt isolated when I came here because nobody spoke English and a lot of Bulgarians didn’t want to speak English - they were embarrassed or whatever - and then suddenly there were people coming from the American University. Mark Wollemann and Melody Gilbert were one of the first ones and if you ever want to push a business, just get Melody involved. She told everybody. They had a fantastic meal, steak, and they had not been able to get a good stake, a good American steak, as they say. Slowly but surely we built up the business and probably more than half of the business is now AUBG.
What differentiated “Casa Adria” from the other restaurants in town?
Okay, that’s a very simple one. I’m from the service industry - the hotel industry is a service industry -you live or die on your clients. So my first, upmost thing was that service was going to be impeccable. [It’s] difficult with the Bulgarian staff because the Bulgarian staff are not bothered about being tipped, because it’s not the Bulgarian culture. But I found some good staff; one [employee had] worked on a cruise ship so he knew how to serve people properly. They all had to speak English as well as Bulgarian. So that side was working well. The other side – even the good restaurants in town serve cheap nasty food. They buy cheap quality food. A lot of the times, they don’t know how to cook it properly. And when they think they are cooking a Mexican or a Chinese, they’ve never been outside of Bulgaria, and it’s the Bulgarian idea of how to cook it which isn’t the real way to cook it. So I thought I could do a better job.
So why is “Casa Adria” closing down?
Okay, it’s a very simple answer but a complex [one], which is always [the case]. The simple answer is that I signed for a one-year contract. I wanted to see how the business would run. I didn’t want to tie myself to a five-year contract. The one-year contract came to an end yesterday (October 10th). I would like to have carried it on. The owners have other ideas for the building. I have to walk away from the contract because it’s finished. It’s a simple answer but complex in the fact that I’ve got a big following of people - where do I go next, which no doubt is one of your questions back to me.