Startup Story
Bright Asiimwe Wandera is the founder and CEO of Plum Cafe and Restaurant in Uganda. She’s a serial entrepreneur with interests in retail chain and hospitality. She’s an alumnus of Africa Women Entrepreneurs Cooperative and Stanbic Bank Uganda Business Incubator. Bright runs two supermarkets and most recently a high-end restaurant with two branches. Bright founded Plum Cafe and Restaurant this year in February 2021 after testing a restaurant model in 2020 that was attached to one of her supermarkets.
LoA spoke to the inspirational serial entrepreneur, Bright Asiimwe Wandera, to find out more about what it takes to launch and run several successful businesses at the same time.
What does your company do?
Plum Cafe and Restaurant is a fine dining restaurant with a well thought through architectural design with amazing decor, great ambience, and good food. The restaurant offers a luxury but affordable continental and Indian cuisines. The restaurant exists to provide fine dining, delicious food, and great service. Healthy living is a very crucial topic in our day to day living and at Plum Cafe and Restaurant, we strive to uphold this with everything we do to serve our customers. The restaurant is open to customers from Monday to Sunday serving all meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The restaurant has a fully-fledged pastry section serving different types of cakes and serves the best coffees around town. It also hosts events like birthdays, bridal showers, baby showers, anniversary, graduation, exclusive dinners etc.
“On a personal level, my satisfaction and motivation in life comes from starting ventures that provide employment opportunities to women and young people.”
What inspired you to start your company?
I saw a gap and I came in to fill it. One day, my children wanted food from one of the high-end restaurants in town. I picked up the phone to place an order, however, the moment I mentioned the place to deliver the food, they told me it was not in their radius of operation. My children were disappointed, I thought about it and felt there must be some other families going through the same disappointment and pain on a daily basis.
On a personal level, my satisfaction and motivation in life comes from starting ventures that provide employment opportunities to women and young people, so this was yet another opportunity for me. In 2014, I started my first business, a retail supermarket out of the need to bring services nearer to people. In 2015, I started baking from home and supplying the supermarket, customers appreciated the products and they started demanding for more other products. This gave me a green light to look for a bigger space where to establish a bakery. I got the space, but it was much bigger, that’s when I decided to put up another supermarket and a bakery in the same space in 2018. With the opening of the bakery inside the supermarket, customers started demanding fast food since most of them are corporates who return home late in the evening after a heavy day’s work and navigating heavy traffic. It was at this time (2019) that I came up with an idea of starting a food corner in the mall where my first supermarket is located and called it a food corner. The food corner was nicely designed and provided delicious continental food; it was basically running like a restaurant. In 2020, when Covid-19 hit, the food corner became a go to for people who were working from home, people especially those with young children at their homes would come and work from the food corner for better concentration. We also had customers, especially singles, who were calling in daily for lunch and dinner deliveries. At the end of 2020, I felt I had tested the model, which had succeeded, and it was time to scale it up.
In February 2021, I started Plum Café and Restaurant as a high-end fine dining restaurant in a place with many residents and apartments but which lacked such a facility. That is the story of how Plum Cafe and Restaurant in Naalya was birthed. This year in September, I had to remodel the one I started with during the time of testing the restaurant model, it’s also a fine dining restaurant offering the same high-end services in Namugongo near Kampala, Uganda
“Our products and services are high end, we treasure in producing and providing high quality products and services. Excellence is something that we strive for daily.”
Why should anyone use your service or product?
Our products and services are high end, we treasure in producing and providing high quality products and services. Excellence is something that we strive for daily. There’s a notion in my country that us locals can never be able to provide high quality service or products. For me, this was and is my motivation to work hard and show our customers that we can provide the best as Ugandans.
Tell us a little about your team
I have a team of professionals, 5 chefs and 2 baristas with good experience in the industry and 2 visiting expert chefs that come in once a week to further mentor and coach the team on new trends in the industry, but also to ensure that everything is on track. We have other staff who do marketing, cashier work and service staff. Part of my team are service providers that I’ve walked with for many years, they help me with conceptualizing the idea, setting up the space and maintenance of the machines. They include the technician who services and repairs the machine, the electrician, the Interior designer and the guy who sets up the steel works in the kitchen. In fact, this team set up Plum Café and Restaurant in my absence because by the time of setting it up, I was sick, I had a back problem, and my movements were limited. I’d only get pictures sent to me by the team leader at the end of the day to show me how work is progressing.
Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?
I come from a family of entrepreneurs, both my Mum and Dad are. My Mum is a serial entrepreneur with grit and tenacity and most people who know her do not get surprised when they meet me on my entrepreneurial journey. I grew up counting money at the end of day when my Mum returned home, but I was very focused on my education, it wasn’t until much later that I started my first business. I remember the thought of starting a business came when I was doing my Bachelor’s degree. There were opportunities at the university, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to balance my course which was hard, Bachelor of Statistics, and running a business. So, I decided to concentrate on education first and promised myself that I’d start my first business after completing my master’s degree.
What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?
One of the challenges that we face in this industry is the inconsistency in the quality of ingredients on the market especially meats and vegetables. So, our future plan is to produce our own ingredients, to ensure consistency in the supply chain and the quality of our food ingredients. We plan to set up a farm where we shall be able to rear animals and grow most of the vegetables and spices.
“There’s a notion in my country that us locals can never be able to provide high quality service or products. For me, this was and is my motivation to work hard and show our customers that we can provide the best as Ugandans.”
What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?
My satisfaction comes from being able to start ventures and provide employment opportunities to women and young people. Nothing matches the satisfaction I get when I hear stories of their transformation, how they've been able to support their families, buying land, educate their young ones or start their own ventures. I'll re-echo the words of Tony Elumelu "Success is when you create jobs, employment for others on the continent".
What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?
Based on my experience as a woman entrepreneur and one with a passion to encourage and mentor other women starting up. This is my 2 cents advice.
Entrepreneurship can be lonely and scary journey sometimes but look out for people who have been there, who can have your back and with whom you can share and validate your crazy ideas regularly.
No one wants to associate with you when you are starting out. It’s only when you have made it that everyone wants to identify with you. Be ready to face rejection along your journey.
As a woman looking up to start, just know that you need to double or triple your efforts because you are a woman. Most people do not believe in women until they see that they can do it. From the start, you need grit, be agile, confident and be ready to be a lifelong learner and innovator on the entrepreneurship journey.
Contact or follow Plum Cafe and Restaurant
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | EMAIL bright_wandera@yahoo.com
Why LoA loves it…
At Lionesses of Africa, we love seeing women entrepreneurs who have a big vision for their businesses and who succeed, multiple times over. Bright Asiimwe Wandera is one such powerhouse entrepreneur. Through her different businesses in the retail and hospitality sectors, she knows from first hand experience what it takes to launch and run several successful businesses at the same time. She is an inspiration to so many women in Uganda who have aspirations to launch and build successful growth businesses in retail and hospitality. She is demonstrating that everything is possible if you have the vision, the tenacity and the energy to go after those entrepreneurial dreams, and with lots of hard work, make them happen. — Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo, Lionesses of Africa