Dmitry Levchenko Biography

Moreover, at school I taught German, and an interview for obtaining a visa took place in English with an American. I memorized phrases for answers to standard questions and was pleasantly surprised when they told me that I was passing, because four people were refused me. According to the program, I was offered to sell tickets in the water park, but this is not for me. Therefore, having arrived there, I decided to find a job on my own and got a job as a dishwasher, hostess and Fudranner on 3 restaurants who brings food to the guests.

For two weeks I worked out the dollars that I took from my parents for a trip. There are good opportunities in the USA, but I did not want to stay there. This country is not for me: there is not enough soul. The Russian man is still fighting with something and for him is perfectly boring, and in the USA everything laughs too perfectly. At 22, I was offered to manage a restaurant, but I refused, and this was my first managerial decision.

Despite the youthful maximalism and a salary twice as much, I understood that about 80 people who have their own destinies were behind me. Due to some wrong solution, I could bury not only the business itself, but also deprive people of jobs and in general, existence. Therefore, I am sure that my refusal was the right decision. Dmitry: Experience in the United States affected me very much, as he became the foundation in my understanding of the restaurant business.

This philosophy of restaurateurs in our country comes only in recent years. And it consists in the fact that the guest, smiles on the face of the staff, not grin, is really important. Previously, we were forced to smile, and now I am doing everything so that this smile and burning eyes of my team would go from the inside. It is worthwhile to understand that it was 9 years ago, when there were no modern standards and a person was characterized by thanking only for something that was done beyond his duties.

Probably, at that moment I began to mean more for the manager than the other employees. In addition, I have a different business model. Plus, I came at the moment when the restaurant complex was already 5 years old, and in our business you can not stand still. Of course, due to the high price tag in the restaurant there was a lot of revenue, but I wanted the restaurant to breathe, because he breathes and lives only when there are many guests in it.

And finally finished the Maregan Economic crisis, when the prices for seafood rose 2 times. We understood that raising prices not even more, although we had a lot of diverse fish, once we even brought a crocodile! And we fully justify this name! I do not believe the restaurants who have a steak for rubles, because I know the cost of this product. On weekends, we refuse up to 50 people, but we are very friends with the guests and consider them our family.

If the guest desired, we can take him a steak in a vacuum package so that he would choose from which one to make a ready -made dish. We can always offer a person to put on a white robe and take it into the kitchen so that he is convinced that we are frying from a quality product on a real coal grill. How quickly did he work? This is the first project to receive a palm branch as an Oscar in the film industry.

This is a very significant award that is not sold and is not bought, the most famous restaurateurs of Russia are involved in it. Basic conditions: The concept has existed for no more than a year and is easily replicated in different regions. When I submitted an application, I did not think that we could compete along with eminent restaurateurs. We tried to hook a very simple, but effective thing - emotions.

We entered the top 12 of 65 concepts. At first we did not believe in this, together with joy I even felt a sense of fear. At the last stage of protection of the project, the chef was supposed to prepare portions of the presentation dish in Moscow, and I and my deputy on stage defend our idea. As a result, we succeeded! A guest is very important for us. If earlier it could be less attentive to him, because the guest ordered only a cup of coffee, now I format the waiters in a completely different way: in our realities we must thank the person for having come here and spent these rubles here, do not forget that all that we buy, eat, eat - all this was not earned, but the guests gave it to us.

It is they who feed us and dress us. Guests are the most important people in our restaurants, and only the children of these people are most important than these people. This is a meat restaurant, not a steak house. This is a concept where in each dish there is definitely meat, and each dish passes through the grill, even desserts. Prime is the only restaurant that offers premium meat from a special chamber, where it matures 21 days with the help of Himalayan salt.

It does not be worshiped, namely, it ripens due to a certain temperature and humidity. This meat must definitely try at least once in a lifetime!The guests also expressed a desire for us to create a more quiet place where they can relax without children, so there is no children's room in Prime, like in our other restaurants, although you can come there with a child, because there is a children's menu there.

And since the restaurant is on the basement, there is a button at the entrance, by pressing which you can call the manager, and he will help the guest to lower the stroller. The most interesting thing is that the tables in this restaurant were booked even before its opening. You can lose money, buildings, equipment are the things that I am guided by. This is the most important.

Therefore, we are doing business honestly. Dmitry: We have a very coordinated mechanism where everyone helps each other and there is always a replacement if a person suddenly falls out of the process. Between the restaurants, I spend the company's company. In the future, I plan to carry out a similar job with waiters, although this is a more complicated process. Dmitry: Honestly, I don't know.

I would probably be the most sad person on the planet. Dmitry: Of course, I eat more in my restaurants, but I still love homemade food more. It happens that I return from the restaurant hungry, because there was a lot of work. What is it connected with? Do you help young restaurateurs? Dmitry: This is our future. At such trainings, I program them, they ask questions with burning eyes.

And, of course, these are our guests. I would like them to come to me. Perhaps they will come to work in our restaurants and will already understand my business philosophy. To talk with professionals who have already formed thinking, and explaining to them that they are doing something not so pointless. And young people are pure minds that will subsequently raise the service sector to a new level.

Choose RU: What institutions in Yaroslavl, in addition to your own, do you often visit and consider worthy? Dmitry: I go to new restaurants and write about them in my social networks, at first it was a fan, but now people are already waiting for these reviews. Of course, not all restaurateurs are satisfied with my reviews, but I write honestly and objectively from the point of view of the consumer about what exactly in a restaurant is so or not.

Now I began to write less, since worthy institutions, which I want to write very little about, although I go to all establishments. Unfortunately, with a huge number of establishments in the city of worthy conceptual restaurants in our city, there are few. Competition in quality institutions is very small, so in this niche you need to develop. Dmitry: It is always important for me to have a leader in business, he should not be depersonalized.

All these restaurants are my children and I make decisions how they are developing. And I am also responsible for all claims and shortcomings. When the company is depersonalized, you do not know where to go. For example, we have on the tables, there are business cards with quality control, where my deputy number is now, and earlier there was my number and any guest could call me with his problem.

Once the guest called me, told me about the problem, we solved it. Then I call him back, imagine that I am the general director, I ask if I solved the problem. Here a person has a stupor: he cannot believe that I call him and begins to apologize for me because he bought me, although we are to blame for this situation, not a guest. It is not customary for us to apologize for this, the guest is the most important person.

In social networks, I always answer guests. My Instagram is more publicly professional than personal. When a person personifies his business, the guest trusts both the person and the business himself, which is very important. Or maybe some kind of network distribution of actors? Naturally, we do not stand still, we are developing several projects. We hope that we will succeed, because we are trying to fulfill the requests of our guests.

I think another project will appear soon under the control of our team. Without development in any way, otherwise a groundhog day will come to everyone: both guests and with us. What is your secret of success? Dmitry: So that the restaurant does not expire the expiration date, I do not look at competitors, but at our guests, what they want, if some request is massive in nature, we are sure to come up with something.

Once we spent an hour of land. This is when once a year on a certain day the light turns off on the entire planet for an hour. We made this chip a couple of years ago the first in the city.

People sat in the hall with candles, and we gave the guests the luminous cocktails of heavenly color, and they liked it so much that absolutely everyone asked to do this not for an hour, but until the end of the evening.