Dining for a cause

Barbora Ullmannová, a waitress at Vinohrady's Ethiopia Café, is quick to say how much she loves her new job.  

"It's a pleasant atmosphere here, and it's different than any type of work I've done before," says Ullmannová, a 30-year-old native of Prague's Bohnice district. "I think you can fulfill your dream in any kind of job, and I just really like working with customers."

Despite work experience in the convalescent wards of area hospitals, Ullmannová was, until recently, struggling to stay employed. In most cases, she says, employers turned her away because she is mentally disabled. Because her disability is relatively minor, she is able to work independently and live alone. However, that also means she receives only a small government subsidy, making it necessary for her to be employed at least part time.  

Ullmannová's fortunes changed for the better this past spring, with the opening of Ethiopia Café. The brainchild of owner Jiří Škvor, formerly of the Prague-based nongovernmental organization Člověk v tísni (People in Need), the city's first African restaurant is also being billed as Central Europe's first eatery to serve traditional Ethiopian dishes.

While the exotic fare is sure to interest Prague's foodie brigade, the restaurant serves a dual, humanitarian purpose: Like Ullmannová, 14 of the café's 20 staff members suffer from mental or psychological conditions that may impair their ability to find work elsewhere.    

After four months on the job, Ullmannová feels she's picked up valuable professional skills. "It's all about the relationship with the customer," she says. "I've really learned how to sell a product."

In developing the restaurant's concept, Škvor - who helped found a mission in Ethiopia in the late 1990s - sought a way to meld his love of African cuisine with his humanitarian goals, and says he couldn't be more pleased with the results so far.  

"It's given me a chance to run a truly unusual restaurant," says Škvor, whose philanthropic career also includes lengthy stints in Serbia, Kosovo and Sri Lanka. "I've never liked to do things in a usual way. Here, I'm able to invest my ideas and my experience into something that's new."

Disabled employees are recruited from local special-education schools or the city's many social offices and, once hired, receive standard contracts and wages. They work on the usual three-month trial basis, in three- to five-hour shifts under the supervision of an experienced employee.  

Škvor believes that most customers are unable to distinguish whether their server is disabled or not. "They're able to do their work very well," he says. "The main difference is, compared to your average server, they need additional time for training and need a lot more support, especially at the beginning."

To the discerning eye, evidence of that continual support is clearly visible. Each menu item, including appetizers, drinks and desserts, is listed with a specific number, and each table is similarly labeled with visible digits, making them easier to identify.

Škvor does acknowledge some difficulties with recruitment. Since opening day, two staff members have been dismissed, after it was determined that their disabilities had begun to impact their ability to work with customers.

The concept of restaurants with philanthropic aims isn't entirely new in the Czech Republic. Café Na pul cesty in Pankrác, which also operates as a live-music venue, employs a staff of servers who have suffered from schizophrenia, while Prague 1's Café Therapy, known for its inexpensive, two-course lunch specials, is partly operated by employees who have successfully completed drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs.

Unlike those establishments, however, Ethiopia Café lacks the financial and structural backing of a traditional NGO, which Škvor believes affects the quality of both the food and the level of service.

"Because those restaurants are run by nonprofit organizations, they're not putting a strong emphasis on quality," Škvor says. "Their customers understand that it's a special business, and they're expected to be more [understanding] than your average dining patron. My aim is to run a restaurant that's the same quality as any other."

From a gastronomic perspective, Ethiopia Café does not disappoint. As suggested by the restaurant's name, one of the menu's highlights is a series of Ethiopian dishes, presently prepared only a few days each month because most of the ingredients are not available locally. These include a series of spicy vegetable and meat-based wat (or thick stews) served atop injera, a pancake-like sourdough flatbread. As is Ethiopian tradition, customers tear off small pieces of the injera and use them to pick up bites of the entrees and side dishes, in lieu of utensils. Škvor credits the creation of the menu, as well as the training of the restaurant's chefs, to Hidare Diribao, an Ethiopian woman living in Prague.

Not only does Škvor feel his restaurant will be a welcome addition to the city's lineup of international eateries, but he also hopes other businesses will follow suit when it comes to hiring mentally disabled employees. "These are people who often think a bit differently than the rest of us, and, as a result, they're able to contribute something special to a team," he says. "They bring a special type of perspective to the company."  

Curtis Wong can be reached at
cwong@praguepost.com