2024-04-25 09:05:45
We invite Maria to sit down with us, but she just waves her hand: “I don’t have time” and disappears into the kitchen.
“I’m a press representative”, laughs Aurimas and tells that he and his wife are in the central part of Dusetai
have long ago bought a huge area with 19 buildings. There used to be a hospital here. The same building where Serpent is located is a former maternity hospital, and before the hospital was closed, the administration moved here.
“After the purchase, the buildings were standing – hands never reached them.” After finishing 12th grade, my daughter went to Kaunas to study English philology. And since she loved to cook from an early age, we suggested setting up a family restaurant. For another two years, until we got to where we are, the idea was rolling around, and this year is already the third year that “Serpent” has been operating”, says A. Kuzma.
When Serpent opened its doors, it had only four tables. And Maria herself planned to work by inviting only one colleague.
“But already after the first summer, we can see that people cannot fit at those four tables. We rushed to the table shop, set up outside. Someone from the customers waiting in line asks – you have a garden, why don’t you plant us there? More tables are needed! And it’s a small space”, recalls Marija’s mother Sandra Platkevičiūtė-Kuzmienė.
The family has set up a hall that can seat 16 people. But even that was not enough to accommodate all those who wanted to – the Kuzmas rolled up their sleeves and installed another hall with twice as much capacity.
The second – large – hall was planned to be opened at the end of this April, but it had to be done over and over again. “The old man and everyone urged – after the Sartų horse race, people will not have a place to eat. We didn’t have time to put the bar table top on – we covered it with potato sacks, and people are walking up to it and taking pictures,” Sandra says cheerfully. And Aurimas laughs: “A good builder will always get out of a situation.”
A. Kuzma calculates that the final estimate for setting up the restaurant was six to seven times higher than he had initially calculated. “To touch the wall here – you need to clean it, here you need the floor.” A very powerful project came out on the scale of Duset”, the interviewer mentions.
During the winter season, Serpent is open on Friday, Saturday and half of Sunday. In summer – all seven days a week. We also accept orders for private parties. “There were four reservations at the same time on one weekend in March. It’s a challenge for the kitchen,” says A. Kuzma.
Dusetas especially come alive in summer. And not only because tourists come to the city – there are many who come here for the summer after buying real estate. Aurimas calculates that some 40 percent of them were sold in the city. homesteads. “Now you can’t buy an apartment in Dusetos because it doesn’t exist,” says the interviewer.
32 customers in one hall, 16 in another and another 50 in the garden. In the summer, just be sure to turn around. Audrius says that zeppelin people also come here from Utena. “The zeppelin recipe is from my grandmother, a hundred years old, and our zeppelins are made with beef,” explains Aurimas.
You shouldn’t be surprised by the filling of zeppelins – the Kuzmas keep a huge beef cattle farm of over 300 cattle. Therefore, when “Sperpent” started operating, there were no dishes with pork here. It appeared in the menu at the request of customers.
“However, we do not buy it from stores, but from farms. It took a long time to select the meat according to the feed that the pig was fed, according to the other requirements that we raised. Great job done. In particular, our provision: cook all food, do not heat anything. Maybe others who want a meal here and now are angry, but we are against the order of large restaurants, where a mass of customers gather. With us, there must be time to chat with the guest. We try to bribe the client with food, simplicity, comfort”, says A. Kuzma.
In order to save time, Kuzmos invested in cash registers, in systems that allow taking orders via tablets – Aurimas says: before the waitress left the table, the kitchen and the bar had already received the orders.
According to A. Kuzma, the restaurant was opened for locals.
“The final price is painful for us, but as I say, let’s save for the systems and not raise the prices – let the locals come. You won’t do a big business here and you won’t earn millions. There are places where money can be earned more easily. And if we see that the people around us don’t need the restaurant, we will close it,” he says.
But Sandra immediately adds: “After the first summer, we saw that people really need it. The location also gives a lot that the restaurant operates in a former hospital. When people remember, they say that someone’s mother was brought here with horses, another was born here. They come to look, and then they sit down to eat.”
After completing the renovation of the restaurant, Kuzmos is thinking about how to fix the large building next to it, which was the main room of the hospital. It would need repairs, and then, the family thinks, young businesses could set up here: someone needs a room for yoga, someone needs a children’s room, someone would like to set up a hair salon, someone wants to get their nails done. “You would go to the bank to ask for money, but there you will ask – where is the business, and our own financial capabilities do not allow us to organize it”, S. Platkevičiūtė-Kuzmienė does not hide, that is why entrepreneurs write projects and hope to get financing.
2024-04-25 09:05:45