Housewives to start restaurant chain

A restaurant, 'Coco Riva', started by few Keralite housewives in the UAE to fight boredom is now opening three new outlets in the UAE and one outlet in Saudi Arabia.

To utilise their leisure time a group of 30 Indian housewives had started the restaurant in Dubai last year.

One year after successfully operating from the Damascus Street, Al Qusais, the outlet is now expanding in and outside the UAE.

For the first anniversary celebration, the restaurant is running a 45 days food festival until January 31, 2016.

They will send food to 600 workers in a labour camp in Ajman and send medicines to poor patients back home in India.

"We are celebrating our first anniversary with a food festival and the menu is prepared on the basis of a typical Kerala mother’s recipes.

"We are opening new outlets in Al Ain, Ras  Al Khaima and Abu Dhabi. We are also talking to business partner in Saudi Arabia to start a 'Coco Riva’," said Dr Bijuns Shajahan, Managing Partner. 

The name 'Coco Riva', came from a combination of coconut and river, two integral part of Kerala life. 

The women shareholders who used to while away their leisure time on social media, watching television or sleeping are now active in the kitchen of the restaurant.

"We did not have any idea about how to start a new restaurant. Whenever we had some parties or events, we used to buy food from outside. Then we thought of using our cooking skills and start a new restaurant of our own. We started with 'Coco Riva', a 7000 square feet restaurant.

"Thirty housewives have invested Dh10,000 each for the initiative and were trying to use their time effectively,” said one of the housewives.

"The new outlets will be opened with the active involvement of women groups in the new locations. Two major women investors will be identified to handle the restaurant business in the same pattern of 'Coco Riva' Restaurant in Dubai," she added.

The members of the group hail from different socio economic groups and different geographical regions of Kerala.

The thirty investors in the restaurant chain includes doctors, advocates and housewives.

The husbands too provide full support to their better-halves' venture.

'Coco Riva’s' menu is equivalent to the home made food recipe for the Kerala community.

This initiative is encouraging other women groups to come forward with plans to open outlets.