VT Times, May 2012

Each month, the
VT Times profiles
someone who has
taken the plunge
and started a
business in Bulgaria,
with useful lessons
for those who may
be thinking about
doing the same.
In this issue, we talk to Mark Waterhouse, who has now been
running the Casa Adria Restaurant in Blagoevgrad for six
months. Here, he share his experiences – good and not so good
- of start up and those all-important first few months of trading.
Mark comes from a hotel management and
marketing background and has been an expat since
1990, previously living and working in Portugal for
five-star hotels. With wife Ina and starting a young
family, they decided to come back to her hometown
in Blagoevgrad, half an hour from Bansko. It
was after 18 months that Mark finally had the
opportunity to realise a lifelong dream: opening
his own restaurant. “I’d never run a restaurant
before, but with my background I knew a lot about
the business. Friends and family always admired my
cooking and said I should open one.” He also felt that
Bulgaria could do with better restaurants “... and a
decent fillet steak!”
Then, serendipity came in to help. Ina Waterhouse
runs a high-end beauty import business and does a
select few clients’ nails. It was over nails, discussing
what Mark would do in Bulgaria, that the client
mentioned a 5-star restaurant that had closed
down, was for rent … and she knew the owners. It
was in a high-end, villa zone of Blagoevgrad. Mark
arranged a meet, walked in – and immediately said
“I’ll take it. Now … what’s the rent?!”
Waterhouse worked long and hard to get ready
for the grand opening: with only six weeks of lead
time. Mark confirms “it was frenetic, working 95
hour weeks, building up stock, doing a deep clean,
preparing menus and sourcing the best ingredients”.
Casa Adria had a VIP preview, with small samples
Expat entrepreneurs ...
the restaurant
2 All our advertising rates are shown on page 40
of different dishes, followed by a wonderful, packed
gala opening in September 2011.
Night two only brought two customers however.
“it was the worst night of my life” Mark says wryly.
There have been ups and downs … great nights
when the restaurant is bursting at the seams,
weddings, birthdays and nameday celebrations …
but also fallow times, including January when the
weather was so bad. Very special nights included
Thanksgiving, where at least sixty people from
the American University celebrated. Each month
sees a new theme: whether Italian, Mexican, Asian
etcetera, with the most popular dishes being
incorporated into the permanent menu.
The very long working hours continue for owner
and manager Mark. He now employs two chefs
- Lyubomir Sandev and George Mandelov - two
waiting staff and a kitchen porter all of whom are
local Bulgarians. Mark maintains tight quality
control, spends much of his time in the kitchen and
ensures the presentation in particular is spot on. All
this work is starting to pay off … though Mark has
lost ten kilos in the process!
“You’ve got to have passion for
what you’re doing”
Mark says, especially to keep up with this kind
of workload. There is an awful lot of admin,
inspection and bureaucracy … the chefs even have
to provide stool samples! “The bureaucracy is worse
than the UK” Mark confirms. “There are things I
would do differently in hindsight, like keeping more
of a distance between myself and the staff. But I love
it … and every day I remind myself I’m doing this for
my daughters’ futures”.
On the marketing side, social media including
Facebook has paid big dividends. Casa Adria
has had to do surprisingly little in terms of
conventional advertising so far as word of mouth