Nursing undergrad now runs successful restaurant in UAE

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  —  A nursing student, who had to quit school to support his siblings and mother after his father passed on, is now a successful manager of a restaurant so popular that customers from neighboring cities regularly drop in to try what’s on the menu.

“Lagi kaming may waiting list at pila especially during weekends. Even those from Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah visit us,” said 34-year-old Guiller John Inocencio of the 27-table, two-storey dining destination located in Sharjah, an emirate neighboring Dubai to the north.

(We always have a waiting list and a queue especially during weekends.)

Abu Dhabi is approximately two hours away by car to the south, while Ras Al Khaimah is also in the northern parts of UAE about an hour away.

Customers are mostly Filipinos at 70% of the footfall; the rest is a mix of Arabians, Russians, Koreans and Indians, Inocencio said. The restaurant is known for its barbecue grill and unique hotpot flavor.

Inocencio, the second of three siblings from Pasig City, said things are looking so good that he has been able to send his sister, the youngest of the siblings, to a nursing school.

“Praise God, in two years she will be graduating,” he said.

Slow start

The success got off on a slow start for Inocencio, whose father died when he was only seven years old. At 16, he was working for his uncle as house boy, cleaning a car and delivering slippers and shoes.

He was a service crew at a popular fast food chain at 18 and was waiting tables at a restaurant a year later. Inocencio dropped out of college because “my mother could not sustain my tuition anymore,” he said.

And so, he was again waiting tables, this time at a restaurant in Bahrain. Inocencio went home in 2011 and worked as a sales associate at Nike shoes. Finally, 11 years ago in 2013, Inocencio made it to UAE and landed a job as waiter at TGI Fridays’ Dubai Festival City (DFC) branch.

“From there, my career started to look promising. From waiter, I became supervisor at a hotel operated by an airline, then I became manager of a restaurant,” Inocencio said in a mix of English and the vernacular.

The COVID-19 outbreak came and Inocencio’s dreams crumbled. Restaurants and other establishments were closed before being allowed to operate again after three months but on a limited scale.

Proposal

Light at the end of the tunnel it was when a regular customer at the restaurant he was managing before the pandemic approached him with a proposal.

“He saw my potential and gave me a chance to manage my own restaurant that he will invest in. I became a business partner and operations manager of the restaurant that I am now running,” Inocencio said.

He said his Arabian business partner is “happy these days because the restaurant is earning good.”

“We are planning to expand and open a branch. We are currently scouting for a good location,” said Inocencio, whose wife and two children live with him.

Inocencio didn’t have formal education on food and beverage. He managed though because “restaurants have always been my passion and I love what I do,” he said. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News