6 days ago
Tasty African Food seeks to grow to 100 restaurants in five years
Michael Olaleye and his wife Abi have been building their restaurant business Tasty African Food for the past 25 years, expanding from one restaurant in Woolwich, southeast London, to 27 across the capital and Kent, with plans to have 100 sites around the country in five years' time.
The decision to open their first restaurant selling West African dishes was 'looking back, crazy', Olaleye said. He was working in IT and his wife was a teacher at the time, 'so we were going from certainty to uncertainty,' based on the encouragement of their church community. They took food to church every Sunday and 'the response was incredible. Abi is a phenomenal cook, and friends and family kept encouraging us to do more.'
One of the first hurdles in Woolwich was that they didn't sell alcohol in the restaurant because doing so clashed with their religious beliefs. However, the couple quickly saw how small the margins were in selling food, relative to alcohol, which is where most restaurants make their profit.
