2- Interview

Questions to ask the business owner of The Host in Dubai Design District.

1. What is your favorite dish that you serve at your café/restaurant? Is it the best seller?

2. How did your career start in this field?

3. Is this a partnership or your own business?

4. What do you want to achieve through owning this business?

5. Why did you choose owning a cafe/restaurant and not any other business?

6. What does your cafe/restaurant symbolize?

7. Did you face any difficulties with your business?

8. What made you choose to work with a group and not individually?

9. In your opinion, what makes your cafe/restaurant special and unique from any other coffee shop?

10. Why did you choose this specific location to open your cafe/restaurant?

Interview answers:

1. The most selling dish and also my personal favorite at The Host is our famous Raspberry Panna Cotta. Gelatin is almost always used to make panna cotta, giving it a silky mouthfeel and melt-in-your-mouth quality. Our panna cotta has the most incredible flavor and richness to it. It is a very delicate, soft pudding made with milk and our tart raspberry puree that adds a little tang to the taste which makes it balanced and unique.

2. In fact, I have never worked in the field of cafes and restaurants in particular, but since completing my studies of management sciences, I wanted to run a successful cafe with a distinctive atmosphere, and this is where my partners joined and helped me with because of their experience in this field, and I learned a lot from them about the work of cafes and restaurants and owning a business in general.

3. This is a partnered business, and we have all started working on this business as a group of educated women together who are very determined to build a successful restaurant/coffee shop. The situation in our home city Dubai is excellent for us women in general and that has encouraged us to own our businesses where we all can gather our excellent ideas into one and bring it to life.

4. My partners and I wanted to create a very unique and welcoming cafe, combining elegance in appearance and comfort for the people who come to visit us, and this is what we have already achieved now, and what we want to achieve now is to maintain the highest quality of drinks and food for visitors with a pure and pleasant atmosphere for them.

5. Me and my partners are food, coffee and chocolate lovers and for that we wanted to show the love we have for that by starting this particular business. Owning a café/restaurant also comes with many benefits not only financially, but it may also be environment and community friendly as well.

6. Our café/restaurant is beautifully hand- crafted in the heart of United Arab Emirates, our Master Chocolatier uses the finest Belgian Chocolate and freshly sourced ingredients to accomplish the fine quality of our chocolates, coffees, and desserts. It symbolizes authenticity, uniqueness and perfection.

7. I did not have any difficulties in owning a business because of the help of my partners, we overcame all the minor difficulties that have come are way easily, for example, the intense competition in this field of business in Dubai, especially that Dubai and the our business location is very famous for its distinctive cafes and restaurants, it was a big challenge to find the perfect place for ourselves here but we have accomplished that.

8. I have chosen to work and own a business with a group because of the skills and ideas we can connect and build together. We acquire a greater range of skills for many aspects of our business by partnering. As a group some of us can contribute expertise and experience that others in the group might be lacking, as well as complementing abilities that will aid in our business expansion.

9. Each place, whether a café or a restaurant or a combination of the two, has its own distinct atmosphere. You can find more than one place that offers the exact same menu, even with very close quality to each other, but the atmosphere is what makes the visitors prefer one over the other, and this is what we are most keen on here that We create an ambiance unlike any other in Dubai’s design district.

10. We have chosen to open our café/restaurant at Dubai Design District because of its pleasant and wholesome community. It consists of recreational facilities, fitness centers, open parks, and a great selection of eateries, cafes, bistros, and other establishments. Dubai Design District is also a designed environment to unwind, inspire, and get inspired as well as move and stay in shape which can help our café/restaurant grow.