Delivering Lessons Learned In Cuba To The Restaurant Industry

In November, I traveled to Cuba for a week-long vacation with my wife and another couple. I departed the United States with an open mind and not really knowing what to expect. The trip was a mind blowing, amazing experience that is hard to put into words. As a regular contributor to the ORBA Restaurant Group Blog, I wanted to share three lessons that I learned about life in Cuba and relate them to the business of running a restaurant.

1. Be Resourceful

   After the Revolution and U.S. trade embargo, much of life in Cuba appears to have been frozen in time. The most obvious sign of this are all of the old cars still driving on the roads. Some of these cars lumbered noisily down the roads spewing black exhaust, while others were painstakingly refurbished and in pristine condition. We had the pleasure of touring downtown Havana in a mint condition 1955 Oldsmobile Starfire. Our tour guide explained to us the difficulties of restoring and maintaining the car without the ability of being able to order replacement parts. Repairs had to be made by either making the broken parts work again or adapting similar parts from other cars. Our tour guide was quite resourceful.

   Applying this lesson to the restaurant industry is quite natural with its historically thin profit margins. Some of the areas where resourcefulness could really help the bottom line are:

   Turning what could be a stumbling block into an asset that draws customers; Repairing rather than replacing equipment; and Finding alternate uses for supplies rather than disposing of them. 2. Be Hospitable

   We went on a tour to the town of Viñales to meet a fourth generation tobacco farmer. We planned on learning more about a popular Cuban industry while procuring some cigars directly from the source. That mission was accomplished but there was so much more to learn. The farmer's story was heart wrenching: His family's farmland was seized after the Revolution. Now, he has to rent from the government the very same land that was owned and farmed by his family for centuries. Not only that, he has to sell the majority of his crop to the government for a fraction of what it is worth. After learning about these hardships, he invited us into his home for a cup of homegrown coffee. That was the best coffee I've ever had.

   After working with...