Kafe Chendana - April Full and all things nice!!!

April Fools!!! My yearly battle cry was helped by a Hair Loss Advert in The Star, which made me send out fake congratulatory sms's to people saying that they've won a 1 year supply of this wonder product. Needless to say, I got some sarcastic but mostly good humoured replies......I'm already looking forward to next year.....

After a fantastic March where we managed to make some sort of impact in Sg Penchala, the team was tested yet again with another bizzare promotion that took a whole 3 days of discussion, brain-storming and exchange of ideas to come up with:
Kafe Chendana's Inaugural Buffet Lunch at RM9.80 per pax.

Many people questioned our wisdom when this idea popped out. I mean, who would even think about creating a huge menu of 30-odd items, set-up the tiny cafe to look like a pseudo-hotel ballroom buffet line, and then charge only RM9.80 for the pleasure. Anyhow, from the positive feed-back we've gathered, we're not doing that badly; as long as X number of pax has their lunch at the kafe of course.

The first week of April was also spent designing the 2'x 5' buntings, as well as the A5 sized flyers to advertise this promotion. Insyallah, we hope to gain some sort of momentum in the first week, and build up towards to end of the month.

Even with the hectic schedule in running a steadily busy kafe, Eddy & I were also busy in preparing the tender document for a new site, which was submitted at 11:29am on 26th Apr 2010, 31 minutes from the deadline. If it's our rezeki, then we will win this tender exercise, and who know what the new site has in store for ACWP and all of us in the team.

Kafe Chendana - First Month of Operation

March came and went, and boy was it an eventful month, full of surprises and a steep learning curve for all involved.

The dressing up this tiny cafe with some decorative touches has gained favourable responses from our customers, who obviously appreciate how much effort we've put in to beautify the cafe, together with: the fresh cream and green colour scheme, the ivy and bird's nest hanging from the walls, the candle lanterns on stands that we put along the road frontage, the prominent banners displaying our special menu items, and the fairy light hung as high as the tree is tall, the clean open kitchen, and the staff in uniform who use trays to serve our customers.

It was also obvious from Week 1 that our Nasi Ayam Bakar and Chicken Chop will be a hit amongst our regulars, some even tapau-ing up to 4 orders at one go, not forgetting our huge charcoal-grilled toast (we serve 2 slices per order at RM2 per order). Of course with any new opening there will be kinks here and there that needs to be ironed our, and i must say that the ironing will be an on-going exercise.

We've also realised that besides Restoran 123 (the corner tomyam joint), we are the only place that shows Astro football programmes in Sg Penchala. During major games over the weekends, we now know how restaurants feel when valuable tables are taken up by hordes of people who only order drinks and sit for 2 hours.

We plan to create a football viewing corner, which only needs an extra tv and some chairs; let's hope business will be brisk so that we can afford to get a decent sized TV. Let's see what April has in store for us....