Class one drop-out who owns top hotel company in Kericho

Mr James Mwangi, 59, was passionate about the hospitality industry from a tender age.

While running errands in Kericho 25 years ago, the illiterate youth got word that someone was renting out a prime kiosk near Tengecha lane and thought that his dream had come true.

He had insufficient capital, so he talked his two friends (Rop and Muiruri) into contributing Sh20,000 which they needed to rent the place as an eatery. But the two gave up at some point as the venture didn’t seem to earn them anything.

“They said that we should sell the business, but I refused. I asked them to be patient so I could pay them back their share of the contribution,” he says.

He bought sacks and lined them on the ceiling. He also painted the room and started stocking kitchen utensils. Then he got a permit to start a hotel after a tussle with health officials.

“I bought one kilogramme of flour and meat. Then my money got finished,” he says.

After cooking, he asked a mechanic to try out his food. But the mechanic retorted that even if the food were free, he would not dare eat in such a den.

CHAPATI DOUGH

Mwangi did not give up. He convinced some people to buy his food, and with the money earned, he bought extra recipe for the following day.

It surprised him that he was a good cook, just like his father, Mr Joseph Kuria. But there are dishes he had to learn to make.

He had trouble making chapati and mandazi dough, for instance. “I requested a man called Juma to show me how to prepare dough. He did it just once then I struggled on my own. I took hours to light a jiko,” he recalls.

He would soon make delicious githeri, ugali and tea. Many people began visiting his hotel. Soon, he could no longer act as the cook, waiter and cashier and had to find a helper.

In the second month, he found someone to assist him, but the person left shortly afterwards to start a hotel in Kisii.

Kuria was left more confused, doing everything all alone. At times, customers would eat and leave without paying. He was desperate for assistance.

It’s after  he employed Kennedy, a good cook, that the business boomed. Mwangi served food and collected money.

Everything went well until some customers from Nairobi visited the hotel. One ordered for an omelette but, due to ignorance, Mwangi scrambled the eggs. “The customer looked at me and said, ‘Stupid!’, and spoke more English that I did not understand. I was hurt and begun remembering the circumstances that denied me the opportunity to get an education,” he recalls. 

He had left school for good the very day his teacher sent him home to fetch Sh20 for fees, way back in the sixties. He was then in Class One in Nakuru’s Bahati.

Thereafter, he was employed to take care of goats in the neighbourhood for 50 cents a month.

Mwangi does not blame anyone as lack lurked in their family of eight children, who were left with their mother as their father cooked for European settlers in the highlands.

STEADY RISE

At some time he was told a group of missionaries was enrolling children for free education in Naivasha but his mother could not afford the fare.

However, it’s a great milestone that he is today the director of the busiest hotel in Kericho. The jovial Mwangi owns the famous Sunshine Hotel Ltd.

This is the place President Uhuru Kenyatta had a meal during a recent visit to Kericho. 

This year alone, the hotel has also hosted Deputy President William Ruto, Cord leader Raila Odinga and an international event for UN Habitat.

The hotel also hosts a range of parties, launches, weddings, and cultural events.

“We are fully booked throughout the year. Our rates are competitive and people prefer our food, customer care and proximity to the town centre,” he says.

However, it was not easy getting this far. A steady rise of Sunshine started in 1991 when Mwangi had earned enough to employ more people. He brought in a Charles Ochieng as the hotel manager. The two key departments (kitchen and finance) were managed diligently by the two.

Mwangi bought his first car from former town mayor John Kauria at a fair price. It was a pick-up. Before he knew it, an investor, Mr Benjamin Tirop, who admired his work, asked him to be a tenant in one of his buildings at Tengecha lane.

He declined the offer two times but later gave in after seeing how beautiful and strategic the nine-roomed building was.

Then they re-launched the hotel with likeable guest rooms. But they disappointed customers since alcohol and casual dates were prohibited there. Every couple had to produce a marriage certificate to book a room.

“Some managers even threatened to quit, saying the rules denied the hotel more clients, but I stood my ground. I said I would rather lose them than cave in to spoil family morals that my dad warned me against,” he says.”

Mwangi eyes Isiolo and Nanyuki as target towns to expand his business, before he ventures to South Sudan and Rwanda.

Having missed formal education, he is unforgiving to anyone who despises school. “Our last born will soon join university, just like the rest of the siblings,” he says.