Years of working as a waitress gave Theresia Muller a unique perspective into the restaurant industry - and this knowledge, along with a determination to turn customers into regulars, has brought success to Bonamia, the Sherwood restaurant she co-owns with her husband, Justin.
Can you give me some background on yourself and how and when the business was started?
Bonamia was started with Bonny and Ethan von Hoffman many years ago, as an anchor tenant of the Walker Drive Shopping Centre.
My husband and I bought and took over the restaurant in 2014.
Since then, it’s been evolving constantly.
We do stick to traditional things, as I believe you don’t fix what’s not broken, which is why we never changed the name when we bought it, and kept some of the traditional menu favourites.
What helped a lot is that I worked for Bonnie for about six to seven years, so when we found out she was selling the restaurant, naturally I wanted to buy it.
As someone who has been in the restaurant industry for a while, how do you think it has changed since you bought Bonamia?
I’d say there are a lot of pop-up restaurants. In Walmer, you can find a coffee shop around every corner.
The trend has definitely changed a lot in PE – we have raised the standard in general. There are a lot more self-owned, made-from-scratch establishments.
You can’t write PE off.
What are some of the best practices that have made your business successful?
There is balance in everything we do. We try to keep things affordable by having monthly and weekly specials. We’re not shy to try new things or take risks, because you never know if you don’t do it.
What are some highlights in running your business?
There are so many highlights: overcoming any challenges that arise, seeing improvements happen, or seeing successful, busy days.
Other highlights are our customers and the conversations we get to have with them.
The nice thing about this industry is that it’s never the same routine every day.
We try to never say no to business, so we’ve had a wedding here, receptions, countless baby showers and birthday parties.
What makes your business unique?
I think community plays a big part in it, because our customer base is built from regulars – and if you aren’t a regular, you soon become a regular.
I don’t want to attribute it to a single thing like food or service, because you can have a bad day, but I think the consistency of the faces you see every day draws you in.
There’s also a sense of stability here.
What are some of your biggest day-to-day challenges?
There’s not one single thing I can pinpoint.
I think there’s an ebb and flow.
Sometimes service reliability can be a challenge, when you’re dealing with suppliers and they drop you at the last minute.
We had a season where we had our Thursday night fillet special and had a supplier who on more than one occasion did not deliver the meat on time, so we had to substitute our special.
Working with other businesses in that sense can become a challenge.
How do you measure success?
Our core thing is that the customer must always leave happy.
Whatever happens, as long as our customers leave happy, we have done our job.
How many people do you employ?
We started off with about eight full-time employees in the kitchen and eight waiters, and now we have 16 employees in the kitchen and a pool of 12 to 15 waiters.
I say that quite proudly, because one of the things I love about being a business owner is that we can provide jobs and help other families.
Do you have any plans to expand the business in the near future?
Yes and no.
We did at one stage try to run a second Bonamia, which just didn’t work for us as it stretched us too much. In the space we’re in, we’re looking at potentially expanding and adding an events room.
How important is social media and an online presence?
I can actually guarantee social media has affected a lot of our growth.
We’ve seen our sales increase in months where we’ve ‘boosted’ our Facebook page, more so than in months where we haven’t.
How did you acquire funding for the business?
My husband took his pension package from his previous job and that is what helped to start Bonamia.
We took our life savings and invested it here, and had a silent investor who gave a small portion that we paid back monthly.
What makes Port Elizabeth the ideal place to run your business?
I don’t know if something like this would work in Cape Town.
Because we understand our own, we know how to cater for our own.
What do you think are the three key traits of a successful entrepreneur in the restaurant industry?
Integrity is a good trait to have, it is very important for anything.
You also need to be teachable.
You can’t ever think you know everything because life, and people, can teach you a lot. Hard work is also crucial.
What do you wish people knew about this industry?
The people in our industry are only people.
We are humble enough to say when something is our fault; we’re not perfect, but we will try our best.
Our jobs are not always as easy as just putting food on a plate as there is a process involved in everything.
We value feedback regarding customer service.