New Fusion (Italian Nicaraguan) Restaurant in Jinotega
Submitted by oncidiumfan on Sun, 2012/04/22 - 13:03.
in
This is the front of the building. It's straight north on the main street (one way the other direction, so you go north on the other streets in you're in a cab), a block up from the statue of the Virgin. I've eaten there several times now. The Philly Cheesesteak is a very Nicaraguan interpretation of the original -- meat chunks, cheese is different, does have onions. They've got various pasta dishes and plates for dinner. Prices are about 120 to 200 cordobas for full plates, less for sandwiches. The place appears to be a favorite date venue for the local kids with some money and for the various visiting mission groups.
Photo of the interior to follow -- these were taken with my cell phone.
Sounds nuclear.
Seems awfully pricey to me. "... local kids with some money..." You're talking about providing 'entertainment' for the top 1% in Nicaragua, aren't you? For them, and ex-pats & missionaries craving a taste of that homeland-feeling they so miss.
What are going wages now? Don't the salt of Nicaraguan soil still earn 100 cords for a 10 hours toil in the cane fields? To support the wife & 5 or 6 kids, some of whom may even be poster children for those missionaries' charities.
Oh wait, sorry, I forgot about the trickle-down theory of economic development.
I think you can get out cheaper with just pizza and beer
I'd have gone over there tonight but it's rice and beans for me for the next day or two. And I've got some broccoli to finish and more carrots than I know what to do with immediately.
Half the population of Nicaragua is over the poverty line, and a little over half live in urban areas.
Relatively few expats in Jinotega. Tons of missionaries, though.
The family knows how to make pizza and seems to know how to run a more complex restaurant.
I think my hamburger (stretched with corn meal), fries, and drink at Adam's Mart generally runs 70 or 80 Cords. This is much better food.
The place that was charging 30 to 40 cords for a similar hamburger went under.
Rebecca Brown
Minimum 3,990 Cords per month for restaurant staff
about doubled in the last few years and power bills through the roof. The two big expenses after the actual food.
Prices look OK if the food is of the standard that the rest of the place looks.
Nicaragua is only cheap on the beaten path.
And "Italian Confusion" is off into the jungle of higher priced.
The food matches the decor
They plan to expand into some of the more exotic Italian desserts -- I'm waiting for the cannolis. Most of the desserts sold out of the front case are Nicaraguan flans, rice puddings, tres leches, and such.
I don't know if they're fully open for lunch -- will have to check that out. Most of the customers are Nicaraguans out for a treat (Jinotega doesn't have enough expats with money to support a high end restaurant, but it does have lawyers' and doctors' wives and children, along with the better off shopkeepers and coffee fincaceros, banking staff, telco employees, and such).
If people want to get out cheap, I think the pizzas and some of the meatless pasta dishes would be the way to go. Plenty of people were ordering pizzas, maybe half the people there on at least one night.
The guy Suzanne and I talked to was not planning to serve anything Nicaraguan (no gallo pinto, nacatamales).
Rebecca Brown
Staff Is Still
very reasonable as long as you keep it skinny. Same rules apply here . . .some people work and others loaf. Loafers corrupt the workers. Boot them quickly. Don't hire friends of friends, someone you are having sex with, etc, etc. Wife is OK: she's going to spend all the profits anyway.
If I could get a commercial rent number I could work up a business plan. I'd rather do common repetitive food (but solid and good quality) that people would come back for frequently ( even Rebecca can afford $3.50 for the breakfast I described, or spaghetti or a burger with a big salad for lunch, same price ) - than going down the exotic "fusion" road.
Rents probably vary greatly with Managua and SJdS being high for a good location, and Jinotega or Matagalpa being a lot more reasonable. Of course if you got a good location in SJdS you're going to see a lot more tourists and regular ex-pats. So, if you net $1 after expenses (food cost is $1 or less in the example above), and you get 20 breakfast patrons daily you could make a nice weekly salary. And that's only breakfast.
I see SO many people cut corners . . .Shelley and I stayed at Cookie and Dave's place in Las Penitas and he had a good lunch crowd, mostly burgers and fries. But he did his fries for the day once daily so they were soggy if you didn't happen to eat right after they were deep fried . . .
If you have no other choice, well, you eat the soggy fries. You certainly wouldn't rave about the meal to your friends . . ."Let's go grab a burger at Las Rocas".
They aren't skimping on staff
I eat breakfast at the Sollentuna Hem if I eat out in the morning -- and that's 50 cordobas. I go there because I like the owner and it's close, but I don't do that every day, either, just once or twice a week if that often.
If I eat out for dinner, I want something I either can't fix at home or don't want to fix at home because of the time involved or the leftover issues (like whole large papayas). I can do beef stews, chicken fricasses, gallo pinto, pasta with broccoli, omelets, frozen fruit desserts, etc. at home. What I can't do is a veal reduction sauce or a fresh cream sauce (fresh cream is not to be had easily here, crema is what you can get from about everyone). I don't have an oven at home so I can't bake things.
People in Jinotega can get gallo pinto, grilled chicken, and various other local Nicaraguan things easily enough on any number of street corners.
This restaurant isn't for people who want to pick up some fritanga food before going home, not that I haven't myself picked up some fritanga food before going home.
Jinotega has all sorts of restaurants serving ordinary food -- and they're all in rather brutal competition with each other and the fritangas (Picnic which served typical Nicaraguan food and hamburgers went under, never had enough customers). What Jinotega didn't have was an Italian restaurant, even though everyone was eating pizza. Esteli has an Italian place and a Chinese place; I know Matagalpa has a Chinese place. What we had before this were Nicaraguan and Cuban places. I would like to see a Chinese place here, but figure I'll end up going to Matagalpa soon enough, or to the food courts at Metro Center. And now that I found a Griswold cast iron frying pan at the USA Articulos store, I can do stir fries at home.
Having one really interesting restaurant in town is wonderful -- where you can either get pizza and calzone or have angel hair pasta with carbonara sauce, or whatever else the cook figures out how to cook and puts on the menu.
Some of the people who show up in the restaurant have a housekeeper/maid/cook who can make the ordinary things even easier than I can make them for myself. What they don't have is a person in the house who can make pizza, pasta carbonara, calzones, or shrimp scampi. (I'm going to keep checking for cannolis).
I couldn't afford as a regular practice a $3.50 breakfast. Ten days of that a month is $35, thirty day a month would be more than I pay for rent at this point.
Eating dinner out is a treat for most of us in Jinotega, and, considering the traffic last time I was there, I suspect I'm not alone in wanting it to be something I wouldn't cook at home.
Money spent on occasional luxuries is never wasted. I can still remember the bottle of ten year old Charbono I found at a Kroger's in Virginia and bought for ten dollars since the price label had fallen off, and which was wonderful enough that I can almost taste it thinking about it now (the manager wanted my phone number so he could refund me money if he found out it wasn't worth ten dollars -- I waved my hand in the air and said it didn't matter). An ordinary meal is utterly forgettable.
The kids taking their dates to the Italian restaurant want the meal to be memorable for all sorts of reasons.
Rebecca Brown
Mamma Mia
Sounds like a lot to me too but there was no description of what was included in the "plates".
What is the rent for a commercial location in Jinotega similar to the restaurant we are talking about? I know electricity and cooking gas are high.
How many ex-pats are there in Jinotega? Perhaps Matagalpa would be a better location . .
Does eggs, (fried/scrambled or Denver type omelet) bacon, toast from fresh baked bread, coffee, orange juice, for $3.50 sound fair? Maybe the same price at lunch for spaghetti & meat balls or similar entree, fantastic salad (easy & cheap to do in Nicaragua), fresh bread, pick up the profit from a soft drink or beer sale. Consistency and dependability would be major goals - a solid meal every time that didn't make you sick. Heavy emphasis on sanitation.
Lasagna & sea food pasta dishes for dinner; (very) modest wine selection. Maybe a wide screen playing "Midnight in Paris" or some other recent movie. Hotel Cafe put on a DVD of Andrea Bocelli one rainy afternoon while Shelley & I were having a late lunch -made the day for us. We were the only people in the restaurant, earned the guy a big tip. Little touches like that are lost on a lot of Nicaraguan business people.
There's a guy in Condega who makes a red every year from the grapes he can't sell . .I don't know if I would drink it but he sells out every year.
A plate is rather substantial
Salad, french fries, rice, and the main dish, some of those with additional vegetables. Some of the dishes are serious meat dishes. Pizza and sandwiches are cheaper. Pasta dishes somewhere in between, depending. The most expensive thing I've eaten there was shrimp. Servings are decent sized, not like eating in Boulder, CO, yuppie places.
These guys own the place -- they had thought about converting it into apartments, but rebuilt as a restaurant. My impression is that at least some of the family were doing some of the work or directly supervising (one of the family is someone Suzanne Wopperer knows).
The majority of people in the place seem to be Jinotegans. The short term mission kids and their minders tend to fill one or two large tables in the back and show up when they're in town (they stay at a house near me or at the Sollentuna Hem most of the time).
The restaurant also sells desserts and pizza to go, which is what their first place sold (now empty across the street). Dino's had the best pizza in Jinotega, so this place continues with the pizza and expands into pasta chicken carbonera (second thing I had there, first was the Philly cheese steak with fries) and other Italian dishes. They've also got calzone, just haven't tried it yet.
Matagalpa has other restaurants, including Chinese. This family is from Jinotega and knows their local competition and customers well.
None of the wait staff speaks English. They've got wide screen TVs that play Nicaraguan stations; they've got a giant fish tank in back with mostly goldfish (which seems to be what most people have in most aquariums that I've seen). Lots of potted plants hanging in the trees. It's very attractive (Soda Tico is another Jinotega restaurant space that is attractive, but more conventional).
They were serving toast with the meals, with garlic butter.
Why in the world would they play movies in English? Too many scruffy gringos who whine about Nicaragua would make their local customers uncomfortable. 75% or more of the expats I know whine far too much about Nicaragua. 25% of them whine about the other expats. We're all very entertaining, I suspect, to the people who live here, though I suspect only in small doses.
Rebecca Brown