Catering: daily running

I was a little bit scared after seeing the premises here because it was huge compared to Hollerich. After all that, it now sometimes seems too small… We often have to turn people away at the weekend… It’s unbelievable but true!

Catering: daily running

Marianne Donven, founder of Chiche! since 2017, then of Yabani

Opening hours

Restaurants have different opening hours. In Limpertsberg, we’re open from Monday to Saturday. However, since we get cleaned out on the weekends at Limpertsberg and deliver food to Esch and Leudelange, we can’t open in Esch or in Leudelange on Mondays because we have nothing to deliver. So, we start production here again on Mondays and deliver to Esch and Leudelange on Tuesdays. So, they open from Tuesday to Saturday. Yes.

Managing food production

We have a huge kitchen here at Limpertsberg which produces food for all three restaurants. We don’t see the difference here between making hummus for 300 or 400 people. And we have a refrigerated van which delivers the fresh meze to the other two restaurants every morning because their kitchens are much too small. Only two to three people can work in them at a time. They grill food on-site and they fry things on-site. Falafels have to be fried to order, otherwise everything comes from here. The marinades, everything, it’s all made here. Most of the mezes are made in Limpertsberg.

The size of the restaurant

We can cater for up to 250 people. For the time being due to Covid, we haven’t put all of the tables back, but 220… Yes. I was a little bit scared after seeing the premises here because it was huge compared to Hollerich. After all that, it now sometimes seems too small… We often have to turn people away at the weekend… It’s unbelievable but true!

Learning on the job

I must say that I worked in restaurants a lot when I was young. I had some experience in catering, but not as a manager, that’s for sure… I learned the rest along the way… Obviously, we were a team at first, so I had a bit of time to take on more and more responsibilities as time went on. I think it’s also mainly connecting with others that’s important, as much with the staff as with customers. That’s what makes me happiest and I enjoy the most. So, I think that management is part of it, it’s not difficult, you have to work hard, but it’s feasible. For me, the most important thing to be a good restaurant manager is knowing how to manage a team and build relationships with customers. I believe that to be crucial.

The Covid years

We weren’t eligible for financial assistance from the Government because you had to have lost 40 % of your 2019 revenue. In 2019, we were a very small restaurant with 18 employees whereas during Covid we had 40 employees, so it wasn’t comparable. We kind of slipped through the cracks. We were eligible for partial unemployment but we didn’t lose enough even though we were only doing takeaways, we were over the limit and most of our staff live in small rooms… I didn’t want to be like other restaurants, completely shut down and suffer the consequences because it would have been very bad for their mental health. I also really tried to make everybody work a bit when we were on partial unemployment. Not just a few people all the time and never others like some companies were doing. It was very important that everybody slowly got back into the swing of things, yes.

The post-Covid revival

A nice cruising speed… We have a nice cruising speed. We cover costs, so all is good. We’re not here to become rich. If it keeps going at this rate, we’ll be able to save money again. But we’re still far from where we were four months prior to Covid.

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