RAINING SAFFRON

ANDREJ WISNIEWSKI of the Raintree Hospitality Group talks about the importance of staff, creativity during a pandemic, and his most favored ingredient

Andrej Wisniewski of the Raintree Hospitality Group describes his role as a CEO, negotiator, taster, and occasional food packer. According to the Filipino-American businessman, the best part of the job has been to see the progressions his staff make, from their humble beginnings to their career growth. "Hospitality is often a stepping stone for bigger opportunities. We are happy to see them "graduate," often to overseas jobs, where they can apply all the skills they learned with us,” he says.

The Raintree Hospitality Group's business focuses on hospitality, from managing boutique hotels and resorts as well as food service, including restaurants, corporate dining, food courts, and online meals in Manila, Cebu, and Boracay. Having a huge foothold in the industry means that there are multiple challenges, even before factoring in the pandemic. “The biggest challenges in the industry right now are finding and keeping talent when people have a lot more choices now for careers and work, competing in an industry with notoriously tight margins,” says Andrej. Despite these issues, highlights have been many: from starting with one food court in 1998 to 28 hotels, restaurants, and food courts in 14 locations, the Raintree Hospitality Group has started more than 800 jobs and supported local economies all over the country.

To be able to succeed in the dining industry, Andrej believes there are three qualities one must have in abundance, in order to succeed in this line of work: high energy, critical thinking, and passion over skills, the latter because skills are learned whereas passions are innate. The biggest lesson he has learned over the years is that while ideas are plentiful, execution is more important. According to Andrej, workplace partners are a make or break factor in the success of a business: “Only work with partners, clients, and colleagues who share your values and outlook, and encourage and empower your employees to make decisions and you will be rewarded.”

Because the food industry is continuously changing, the next stage of the Raintree Hospitality Group is becoming a food and food and staples company. For their hotels, Andrej forecasts that the next focal point will be the tremendous domestic tourism market and their needs.

INNOVATING IN A TIME OF PANIC

The person who inspired Andrej most when it came to cooking was his grandmother, Honorata Fajardo, who started her food business Bungalow in the 1950s. Because of her passion for food, the rest of the family in turn became immersed in the world of dining. As a young boy, he spent time around his grandmother and parents, watching them navigate the world of food. It was this early experience that led him to imagine dining as a possible career. “I started working as a bellman and hotel housekeeper at 15,” he says. “And if you’ve ever been to the Wisniewski house, there is no escaping the food.”

At university, he grew interested in socially responsible businesses. “I realized that the hospitality business offers that opportunity in so many ways. The number of jobs and livelihoods created from one restaurant or hotel is tremendous. Millions of Filipinos and their families depend on the industry,” he says.

In the current situation, Andrej has seen that dependence grow even stronger. As of now, the Raintree Hospitality Group has only partially reopened some of their 28 outlets seven months into the community quarantine period and has not been able to recall the bulk of their employees. To adapt, they have become resourceful in managing limited revenue and costs until the economy can rebound. There has been a shift in the restaurant business model towards becoming more of a food and food staple business. "We launched a couple of new online restaurants in BGC—Stella Wood-Fired Pizza and Pak! Pak! Chicken and we are launching a new online market Raintree On-the-Go with delicious fresh and frozen food for delivery,” he say

On the hotel side, Andrej believes that there is less to worry about. “We are optimistic that tourism demand will return since tourism has been booming the last few years,” he says. As of now, Coast Boracay and Cha-Chas’s Beach Café have reopened and their focus is on the domestic market. “It is a great time to be in Boracay,” he adds.

For the safety of both customers and employees, the Raintree Hospitality Group has trained for and adopted the best industry practices for COVID-19. These include PPE at all times, regular sanitation and disinfection of all surfaces, hourly hand-washing, sanitation stations for customers, capacity limits, furniture, and chair rearrangements, promoting open-air dining, contactless menus, and payment options, and being vigilant and knowledgeable about COVID-19. “With all of the information widely available now and the practices that the industry quickly adopted, I am very confident in the safety of almost all hotels and restaurants now,” says Andrej.

Andrej knows that because dining out is as much a social impulse as it is to enjoy the food, there will be marked changes. Physical distancing and capacity limits will be a challenge, especially to the bar business. In the new norm, restaurants and resorts with sizeable outdoor dining and lounge areas will be preferred.

For the businesses themselves, it might be even trickier. “Over the next 12 months, there will be a wave of closures and a severe reduction in the number of restaurants. In particular, those located in the CBDs will struggle as companies continue to work from home,” says Andrej. “As the government will likely strengthen and weaken the community quarantine as needed over the next year, it will be very rocky for restaurants and other service businesses.”

However, it is not all doom and gloom. Andrej mentions that the industry now knows how much can be done with fewer resources, and lower sales than thought possible. "The good news is people are generally eating the same amount of food,” says Andrej. “They are just accessing it and buying it in entirely different ways now." It will be up to everyone to innovate, whether they are a new online food seller, a "mom and pop" start-up, or a professional company introducing a new line of business. Because of community quarantine rules, there has been an acceleration in the adoption of technology, especially in order and delivery. “It has been a very destructive time for the industry but also a very creative time. It is a great time to be a consumer while all of this innovation is going on,” he says.

JARS OF SAFFRON

Before the pandemic and subsequent travel restrictions, Andrej found the most enjoyment not in spending money on possessions, but on experience and travel. A trip to Europe every fall was de rigueur, to see where Game of Thrones was shot in Croatia, to visit Sicily, Umbria, and Tuscany. "Somehow we keep ending up in Italy,” he says. There were also family vacations to San Francisco and New York, and closer trips to home for extended weekends, like a visit to Coast Boracay. “Hiking in the snow at 10,000 feet and living on a houseboat in Kashmir on the India-Pakistan border was a fantastic experience,” he says.

To end, Andrej shares that his most favored ingredient is saffron. “I could put it in anything,” he says. If he had all the ingredients in the world the dish he would make for himself would be saffron ice cream. “Maybe any floral ice cream. Or any ice cream.”