The questions began. ‘Am I a creature designed solely to stay at home and raise children?’
I heard the answer. ‘No.’
I asked again. ‘What can I do in this country (Spain) where I don’t speak the language?’
I heard the answer. ‘Everyone eats. I can cook. And when you cook, words aren’t necessary.’
This is how Restaurant Mina began.
First, I scouted for a location. I looked at several places for rent near busy squares and main streets crowded with shops, but the rent was more expensive than I thought, and the process of obtaining a restaurant license was unimaginably complex and time-consuming. Since I couldn’t predict the reaction to an Asian restaurant opening for the first time in a small town rather than a tourist area, I had to keep fixed costs to a minimum, so I quickly gave up on renting a whole shop.
My next move was to barge into a shop already operating in the location I had in mind and ask point-blank.
After firing off questions about how business was, what the rent was, and what the monthly revenue was, (only then) I read the room a bit and hesitated before asking if they were willing to share their shop with me.
Believe it or not, after asking around like that just three times, I found a place.
Believe it or not, at that time, my vocabulary consisted only of ‘Hola’ (Hello) and ‘Gracias’ (Thank you).
My meeting with Laura, who readily allowed me to share her shop, also began with me being illiterate and mute in her language, and even now, we share our joys and hardships. (We still communicate through looks rather than words.)
Fortunately, our business hours coincided perfectly for sharing the shop. Laura, who provided school meals, would come in at dawn to prepare food, and around noon, just as she was finishing everything to prepare for delivery to the school, I would go in and prepare for my lunch business.
I applied for a self-employed visa using the license number of the shop Laura already had.
I also borrowed Laura’s account to apply for National Pension and health insurance, which required direct transfer from a bank account. (The bank would only open an account once the self-employed visa was issued, but the pension and insurance applications required for that visa required a bank account; thus, it seemed practically impossible to get a self-employed visa alone without any connections.)
Not just the shop, but Laura also gave me a section of her freezer and allocated a refrigerator she wasn’t using. So, when I started my business, my total investment consisted of three frying pans, one pot, some packaging, and a few cooking utensils.
On the day I printed and distributed flyers, my daughter brought about fifteen friends from school. When those children ran all over the neighborhood with my flyers, even their parents, who came to pick them up, ended up chasing the kids and taking bundles of flyers from them to help distribute them.
As someone who had never run a food business and had a history of causing accidents whenever I stepped into the kitchen, my goal was not grand. It was just a small lunch box shop. My calculation was that if I prepared the ingredients in advance and packed them neatly into lunch boxes upon order, I wouldn’t necessarily have to understand or speak Spanish, and if I prepared well, I could respond quickly when orders came in.
However, as always, things did not go as expected.
The phone rings.
Hola! I answer energetically.
(And then)….
(I can’t understand a word.)…..
People didn’t just give the food names exactly the way I wanted when they ordered. They would ask me to list every single ingredient, whether it contained gluten, if it was raw, how well it was cooked, whether I used a separate pan from the one used for nuts, and so on. They also asked if I delivered, if I was on Menudelía, why I ended up living here… their questions and chatter were endless.
Where did that naive belief come from, that running a food business wouldn’t require talking???
Even if I regretted it, the deed was already done.
I started the business by using hand gestures, running Google Translate, and getting by with a silly grin.
There were nights when no customers came and I sat alone until closing time, watching the clock and listening only to the bleak sound of the wind, but the days when quite a lot of customers swarmed in gradually increased.
Since it was a one-man show where I made the food, took orders, greeted guests, packed items, and handled payments, when customers had to wait, those who had become familiar with me started explaining my food to other customers on their own.
The customer who heard that explanation would then explain it to the next new customer, and when I needed an extra hand, customers would help with packaging and even answer the phone.
Before I knew it, I became part of a system where I just had to keep moving my hands busily while grinning like a slightly crazy person.
When I am opening the shop and getting ready, locals pass by waving and saying, ‘¡Hola, Mina!!!’
When I look out with an expression that says, ‘Who are you?’, they come in as if they have realized it and kindly introduce themselves.
‘I run a cafe over there. If you need anything, just tell me anytime!’
There wasn’t a single customer who got angry or said something unpleasant to me when I fumbled and felt sorry for missing the pickup time. They always said this:
‘It’s so good that you’re busy! I’ll take a walk and come back, so don’t rush and take your time!’
Although my body was exhausted, I gradually came to love these warm-hearted people, this beautiful neighborhood, and my little shop.
As it started in such a nonsensical way, it also began to roll along in an absurd fashion.
