During its twenty-five years of existence, the company Catering team Lisak, excluding the time of the coronavirus pandemic, has always operated positively. It was founded by Ana Lisak, who has been engaged in entrepreneurship since her early youth, and this is her second company. She established a construction finishing works and interior design business in 1989, but during the Homeland War, she became involved as a peace activist and later as a humanitarian. She worked with war victims (children and women) and then got involved in various international peace initiatives. When she no longer saw herself in activism, she founded Catering team Lisak in 1999.
– I turned a new leaf and decided to take my life into my own hands and engage in something I would build from the ground up. In the meantime, I ended up on the unemployment register receiving a miserable unemployment benefit, which is why I started the company out of dire necessity. I didn’t have a serious business plan, but I was convinced that I would somehow fight through and succeed in realizing whatever I decided. I was presented with several opportunities and chose hospitality, opening a small bistro on the fourth floor of the health center in Zagreb – recalls owner and director Ana Lisak. At that time, she knew nothing about hospitality.
– If I had known, I certainly wouldn’t have ended up in a health center. Who would be smart enough to go eat there? And on the fourth floor, no less! – says Lisak.
Learning on the Job
Given that she encountered catering at various occasions, international conferences, and other events, she decided that if the bistro business did not succeed, she would start catering in the space she rented.
– My guiding thought was: if guests won’t come to me, I will go to them! – states Lisak.
She faced many challenges: how to set up the business, where to source ingredients, hire professional staff…
– I knew nothing about it, but I was willing to learn from my own experience. It quickly became clear that if I truly believe in something and invest all my work energy, success will not be lacking – she emphasizes.
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Since she had no money to invest, she arranged the space herself, framed pictures, sewed curtains and tablecloths, and brought dishes from her kitchen. After four years of operation, she saved some money and borrowed another thirty thousand German marks to start arranging a large space in Zagreb’s Zavrtnica.
– It was dilapidated and unfinished, but to me, it seemed like the fulfillment of a dream. I remember constantly repeating: ‘Never forget where you started and where you are now’ – she recalls.
Soon she repaid the borrowed money and financed the purchase of inventory, raw materials, and paid salaries from the daily business income…
– At that time, I learned not to go into debt, but to manage the funds I earn carefully and responsibly – says Lisak.
Loans were expensive, so she decided to use them only in exceptional situations.
– We only paid our first profit after almost ten years of operation. Very cautiously, so as not to jeopardize the business. I have always been guided by the principle that the principles of managing a company are based on the same premises as running a household: be responsible and spend what you have. First, pay all obligations: taxes, levies, utilities, loan installments, etc., everything we cannot influence, which is crucial for operation, and then salaries to employees, suppliers, improving the business by acquiring nice and functional inventory, equipment, employee training… We regularly set aside part of the funds for the time when we will not earn as much as we need. It was very important that we always had money in the account to finance basic business expenses and cold operation for at least three months. In the end, whatever is left, we save for expansion and improvement of activities. Profit has never been an end in itself for us, but the process of creation and the feeling that we are on the right path has certainly fulfilled and satisfied us – says Lisak.
Business Expansion
Catering team Lisak operates at several locations. Since 2003, it has about one thousand square meters of space for food preparation, storage, equipment and inventory, a restaurant, and offices in Zavrtnica. It also has the Lateral restaurant in a skyscraper on Strojarska Street and Rooftop, a unique space on the 26th floor of what was recently the tallest skyscraper in Croatia, intended for various events. A year or two ago, she took over the space of the oldest Zagreb restaurant, the iconic Skenderica, which has existed since 1912, and redesigned it according to the concept of comfort food, traditional food that was once eaten in Zagreb’s bourgeois families.
As the company developed and expanded its business to new locations, the need for new employees grew. Today, there are fifty to sixty permanent employees, and students and external collaborators work occasionally.
– Fortunately, employee turnover is not high. Most of the additional employees we find through recommendations from permanent employees, and some apply themselves. Three years ago, we were among the first to hire foreign workers, specifically from the Philippines. Today we have twelve of them and two more with immigrant status. Most of them are in auxiliary jobs, and three or four have made significant progress in acquiring knowledge of food preparation, general nutrition, and Croatian culture. We would very much like to employ only local workers, but people simply do not want to do certain jobs – says Lisak, who would like to hire young, educated, and motivated people willing to learn and develop into valued professionals.
She claims that today the profession of waiter is highly undervalued and that students who enroll in hospitality school do so because they have no other options, but they do not plan to pursue that profession.
– Tourism and hospitality are extremely important sectors of the Croatian economy, so these topics should be considered very seriously and the approach fundamentally changed – she says.
High Costs, Low Profit
Catering team Lisak planned to open an educational center for chefs and waiters in 2020, secured space, programs, and lecturers, but the coronavirus pandemic halted that. However, in 2022, she hired an educator who teaches most employees various techniques of modern hospitality daily. Although the hospitality sector was severely affected by the pandemic, Catering team Lisak did not lay off employees but found a way out through business innovation. They devised a grazing box – a dozen different formats of boxes with small assorted snacks that were delivered to hundreds of different addresses while respecting epidemiological measures.
