LIFE BY LOUIS: What mall restaurants can learn from ‘vibandas’

I miss the old rhythm of life. I miss going out to eat at the local ‘kibanda’ where Mama Carol transforms eating into a whole new experience.

You cannot compare Mama Carol’s place with the high end eateries where an order for a glorified chapati in the name of pizza takes one hour to process.

The only difference is that Mama Carol is allowed to operate at a lower standard. You can only expect so much ambiance and hospitality in a place where thick tea in a cup the size of a water tank costs you only 10 bob.

I have very little respect for anyone who purports to sell me cappuccino in a large cup and ends up bringing me the same liquid in a bottle top.

Why do they always serve cappuccino like it is cough syrup and an overdose will cause dizziness and irritability? And why proceed to sell the same at the price of a barrel of refined gasoline? 

The supply chain involved in processing the cup of cappuccino does not allow you to receive the order when it is still hot.

The service assistant passes through three stations carrying your order on a tray. She stops at a station where she picks up a few more unnecessary pieces of cutlery and spices.

She then goes and addresses another machine where she keys in your order and prints out a document.

COLD AS MY SOUL

Even with the mechanisation, she still has to pass through the cashier and obtain another document in exchange for her printout.

By the time the cappuccino arrives at the table it is already as cold as my soul.

The high end eateries need to borrow the skills of Mama Carol in terms of qualitative and quantitative analysis.

First of all, there will be no day that you will lack tea at Wa Carols.

When she estimates that the number of customers is about to surpass supply, she retreats to the inner recesses of the kitchen and goes back to her chemical analyst’s mode.

She closes the kitchen door, takes a jerry can of water and decants half of it into the sufuria whose diminishing tea contents are about to destroy her business proposition.

She adds milk, tea leaves and then opens the door of the jiko. She takes the cover of a sufuria and blows vigorously into the jiko’s door in order to hasten the boiling process as her ample bosom shakes in rhythm.

Meanwhile she comes with a crumpled daily newspaper and tells you to be reading stories about BBI as the tea gets ready.

When the tea comes it is as hot as my little understanding of hell.

To apologise for the small inconvenience of the delayed order, she sends Carol to serve you.

She pretends to be busy so that you can flirt with Carol a bit. She knows that flirting has been known to uplift downcast male spirits since the world was created.

Carol is shy and has an oily face because her appetite for mandazi has refused to go even after working at her mother’s eatery as the deputy director for the last four years. But she has a heavenly spirit to boot.

She knows her stuff, unlike those interns that they employ in those overpriced eateries in the malls.

She is also exceptionally bright. When her mother opened the hotel 22 years ago, she fell in love with a regular client who was a neuro surgeon in a nearby hospital. As a result, Carol was born with the brain of a surgeon and the alacrity and acumen of an entrepreneur.

Unlike the bored attendants who serve you in the fancy eatery at the mall, Carol does not treat you badly when you walk in with a beautiful date. She understands that your dating career is none of her business.

She does not keep hiding your bill until you have to look for her under the tables.

She does not bring your change in coins so that you can leave her tips.

When you complain that your tea is cold, which is rare, she does not pout her lips and give you attitude from here to Kazakhstan. She takes it away gracefully and it returns hot and full even when you had taken a few big mouthfuls before complaining.

When it is about closing time, she does not start picking the sugar dishes and giving you a face to suggest that she wants to close and go home. If you want to order tea until midnight, she is at your service.

She has a solution to every problem without calling the manager or supervisor.

If chapati ndengu is finished, she does not just stand there wasting a business opportunity. She disappears through the back door and goes and borrows five chapatis from the neighbouring Mama Shawn. She then leans close to your face and asks if you can have mboco instead of ndengu, then she sprinkles some three pieces of meat on the mboco as a compliment. She adds a small bowl of matumbo soup as a reward for your understanding. 

If all these glorified vibandas in the malls could only humble themselves and borrow a leaf from Mama Carol, they would make more money and stop complaining that that business is low.