Business Ideas in Romania

Traditional Restaurants - follow up.

• Posted by Cristian on March 11th, 2007 filed in Food and beverage, Services

Opportunity: Offering unique customer experience in restaurants.

Following up on my post about Opening up a Traditional Restaurant I made a few phone calls and talked with some people from within the industry. I also visited one new restaurant.

The questions this time were: What is the specific cuisine of this restaurant?…’Romanian traditional’ was the general answer - which created a little bit of confusion, as some were Romanian but not entirely traditional. By traditional I mean recipes that are traditional, not just Romanian, as well as decorative elements such as traditional rugs hanging on the walls and wooden chairs and rustic wooden tables, waiters wearing traditional costumes and so on, a total immersion into folklore. Triumf - Casa Taraneasca and Vatra are two restaurants worth taking into consideration.

Although Caru` cu Bere doesn’t fit in all that well… as the atmosphere there is not entirely traditional but more like a German beer house… they do see themselves as traditional because of their historical heritage. The building was built in 1879 using a German beer house model, but it creates the atmosphere very well; the architecture and scenery are a main attraction.

This is part of the answer to my second question: how important is the scenery in creating that unique atmosphere that attracts customers?… Traditional restaurant owners consider it to be very important as it’s what differentiates them from other (nondescript) restaurants. And to further strengthen that image in the consumers’ mind, traditional restaurants organize artistic activities every night, including folklore songs, traditional dances with professional dancers, and sometimes even “lautari” like Master Radu Simion who plays folk songs on the Pan flute. This helps entertain customers, and it is also a way to show foreign tourists what Romania is all about.

Caru` cu Bere does even better at this , as at the end of each program, customers are invited to dance “Perinita” with the dancers, thus either giving them a great experience or simply embarrasing them in front of friends - in any case, certainly creating buzz and “word-to-mouth marketing”. I myself fell victim to this, twice.

According to Ms. Madalina Stroilescu from Caru` cu Bere, these are all strong points that they have against competition.