09 Nov 2016

Passion and the zeal to succeed are the best recipe to make it in a female dominated industry.

Childhood friends, Mr Bashingi Nkgare (34) and Mr Sechaba Modise (36) left their noble jobs in the banking industry to follow their cooking passion.

They came together in 2015 and established an international cuisine leading restaurant in Jwaneng called Galaxy Grillz, where they treat their customers to Mexican, Portuguese, Indian and local Setswana meals among other international cuisines.

The two, creatively merged their experiences from previous jobs to back up their busy restaurant.

Mr Nkgare brings with him a wealth of marketing experience, after working for a local bank as a sales agent before leaving to join another bank where he further gained experience in business banking.

His clients under commercial loans were impressed by his tactfulness and they encouraged him to venture into business.

On the hand, Mr Modise who is a professional accountant had to close his other business of a funeral parlour to follow his passion of cooking.

That marked the birth of Galaxy Grillz restaurant. Though they are co-directors and have employees, Mr Nkgare and Mr Modise are hands on and make sure that they meet the clients’ needs and get feedback from their customers from time to time.

The two gentlemen’s love for cooking and introducing unique Italian and Mexican cuisine, attracted clientele from Jwaneng Mine senior officials and the Galaxy Football club management.

They presented their proposal to the team management and their partnership started as a sponsorship from the restaurant to the team, with 12 000 branded bottled water for the rest of the first division season.

 “We saw an opportunity in catering and we were given a tender to cater for the team patrons and Christmas parties for different companies,” explained Mr Nkgare.

The pair were happy to receive government funding through the Youth development Fund (YDF) at the value of P97 000 which they used on administration and setting up of the restaurant. The restaurant focuses on take away, outdoor catering, events management, a la carte and buffet services.

Their Monday is a special one and not a conventional restaurant that serve usual meals.

“For our pastas, we use strictly Italian brands from Riscosa, Linguin and Fettuccine suppliers and we are the only restaurant in Jwaneng serving English breakfast as in toast, beacon, sausages, eggs and tea,” said Mr Modise.

A la carte means the customer orders from the menu which ranges from hake fish, calamari, cata sauce and chips. Another dish from their menu which many customers walk in to order is stake with boerwors, garden salad and chips. A customer has also an option of ordering buffalo wings and burgers.

The restaurant has also recently introduced tacos, a Mexican sandwich made of corn bread as well as burritos which is ban of mince, chicken or beef gravy.

Their buffet which is available on Monday to Thursday include maroon cheese, roasted vegetables, fried rice, bolognaise pasta, chicken or beef stir fry, Portuguese rice as well as lamb or goat chops.

These are accompanied by mouth-watering salads ranging from creamy spinach, cinnamon butternut, coleslaw and beetroot.

Their Fridays are spared for local traditional food and their customers are treated to Madombi with Marapo, dikgobe, bogobe jwa lerotse, seswaa, mogatla and meat.

Their strategy of delivering door to door is working for them. They have also responded to the customers’ call to introduce pizza and coffee.
ENDS