AWN visited a new African / Nigerian restaurant that just opened its doors to customers almost a week ago to ask what the the new proprietors aim to achieve with the new business and how they hoped to fill a gap in a service that many feel is essential in Cardiff.
AWN - Why did you feel there is a need to open a new African restaurant in Cardiff?
Funky - Cardiff is in need of places where people can have genuine African food cooked with passion. We felt there is a need to deliver a proper service, not just the African community, but also to people who are curious to try good African food. We discovered a very big gap in the African food market in Cardiff especially in terms of cooked food and we felt that as we had the skills, we had to come in to bridge that. Gap in the market. So we are coming to with a mix of African cuisines, Nigerian, Gambian, Ghanaian . The aim is to take from all parts of Africa. We will be serving Afro-continental dishes in the restaurant. We also want to make it a family friendly place with a very nice environment for people to come in and relax and have a good meal. Our Chef is very professional and studied here in Cardiff. She has a good knowledge of the hospitality business. Our aim is to give high quality customer service and we aim to make sure that our food is of the highest standard. So we expect that when people come in, we are giving them food and service of the highest standard.
AWN - Do you hope to make this restaurant highly competitive
Funky - As a business, you have to be highly competitive and this is not just about the price you pay but also quality of service that we render to our customers so the aim is to be highly competitive and to this end we will also aim to tailor our services to our customers personal demands thus accommodating the needs and demands of our customers. We will aim to have a level of flexibility in relation to our customers needs thereby making us very competitive. We are also aware how the cost of living issues have affected everything and how prices of essential things have really shot up so we will be considering this in terms of our pricing so that people can come in and have good food at an affordable rate.
AWN - So what you are saying is people can get quality good food which is not very pricey?
Funky - Yes, Exactly
AWN - What times are you open to customers?
Funky - We are open from Mondays to Saturday and off on Sunday. We will be open from 11am to 11pm. Most days we will stay open at this hours. We will be having brunch. Light food like pastries, tea and by afternoon, we have the main African dishes like pounded yam, jollof rice and fried rice. We will have background music which would be mostly African music like afrobeats, Fuji and other types of African music. We want people to enjoy the best of African music and hope to create a very good ambience so you can eat and have a nice discussion with friends when you are having your meal. This is our plan.
AWN - Will you be doing deliveries?
Funky - This is part of what we plan to do. We realise there are people who are so busy and are looking for good quality food delivered to them. Many of these are students and there are also a good number of professional people who have reached out to us to ask if we will be delivering and i can assure them that we will deliver. So people can order and we will deliver to their homes or place of work. Students will be busy in school and can’t come in for food. We will deliver to families too because parents are busy with work, school runs etc so we recognise there is a need for these service and we aim to help to ease the stress by making sure that we have this service.
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