Twice in the middle of our marathon interview with Mrs. Jovita Nkechi Inyang who was 60 yesterday, something unusual happened: a well-dressed gentleman who might be the man-ager of her high-profle restaurant brought in food in a tray, as if to serve her lunch. And when the plate was opened, it turned out not to be lunch but two small portions of vegetable and egusi soups brought to Mrs. Inyang, the proprietor and the chief taster of Jevinik Restaurant to taste and approve before they could be served to customers.
As she tasted the soups, Mrs. Inyang, a culinary perfectionist to the core wasn’t satisfied with one “Add a little more crayfish to this,” she ordered, pointing to on of the soups. But for the fact that she was granting an interview, Mrs. Inyang would have been in the kitchen herself, lead-ing by example. Yes, here is the woman behind the roaring success of Jevinik Restaurant chain which has two branches each in highbrow areas of Port Harcourt, Lagos and Abuja and one branch each in Owerri, Aba and Calabar, bringing a total of eight branches. In Lagos, for instance, her res-taurants are located in a multi-storey corporate house in Isaac John Street, Ikeja and the second at Victoria Island.
Each of the eight buildings where the restaurants are located runs into hundreds of millions, if not billions, but they belong to the company. Here is the business amazon, a Nigerian miracle success story who deserves to tell her inspirational story for people to be motivated to discover their own passion and turn it into gold. The fact that today, her restaurant chain employs over 400 staff is perhaps an indication that the Chief Cook is wealthy and successful by all standards, but don’t let Mrs. Inyang hear this. “I don’t see myself as successful,” she will tell you. “I still see myself as one who wakes up in the morning, goes to the kitchen, cooks and supervises and all that. Successful people, do they go to the kitchen to cook? I mean, not in their homes, but in restaurants?”
As a follow-up to our business classic books like “50 NIGERIA’S CORPORATE STRATEGISTS” AND “50 NIGERIAN MARKETING MEMOIRS,” Dimgba Igwe and I had decided this time to do another book: “50 NIGERIAN ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS STORIES.” This was what brought us to the new, ultra-modern Jevinik Restaurant along Isaac John Street, Ikeja in search of this woman quietly oiling the wheels of the Nigerian economy with her entrepreneurial drive and culinary skills. When I suggested that we include Jevinik, my partner, Igwe thought I was joking until we reached the magnificent office of Jevinik at Isaac John and became stunned.
There she sat elegantly, cool and calm, pretty, not looking her age, initially reluctant to talk, but was going to talk to us only because her pastor in Port Harcourt, Simeon Afolabi, had recommended us as writers with a high pedigree. Eventually, we struck a rapport to the point where the lady even wanted us as her biographers. Adversity brings the best or the worst in people. In the case of this Owerri woman married to a Calabar man, it brought the best. At a point in their marriage, the family was facing hard times. The husband lost his job and Mrs. Inyang, a housewife, found herself in dire strait. She didn’t know what to do. In her confusion and solitude, she experienced an epiphany. She recalls: “One day, I was just gazing, just looking throughout the window, thinking of what to do how to help the family. My first son then was about to enter secondary school. And the thought flashed through my mind like a bolt from the blues.
A voice within was telling me: ‘You know how to bake. Why don’t you do something about it?’ That was how the idea came into being. The idea of baking—making some small cakes. But then, how do I start? That was the big problem. I did not have any money. Where do I get the money to start?”
She left for the market one day with a meagre amount of money given by the husband. After economizing and making all the necessary purchases, she was left with a balance of N45. What will she do with forty-five naira? She decided to invest that little money in baking cakes. Today, that mustard seed has turned out into an oak tree, into a multi-billion restaurant chain—and still with more branches to come at the appointed time.
From selling her cakes in ministries, in hospitals and later at the University of Calabar where she started a restaurant called Pyramid, Jevinik has become a household restaurant where customers are served with food inspired by a marriage of two culinary cultures: Calabar and Owerri with the addition of other Nigerian cuisines. People who have eaten in Jevinik end up as ambassadors who advertise the restaurant by word of mouth—Mrs. Inyang does no adverts!
At 60, Mrs. Inyang has a lot to thank God for. “Success in business is all about God,” she says. “He is the giver of all things. It is only when He opens the door that you begin to smile. When the grace is not there, you labour in vain. So, I think it’s all about God. He is the one that makes your labour to come without much stress and pains.
“As I clock 60, I have so much to thank God for. I thank God for my life, for good health. I can’t remember when l last found myself in the hospital. I can’t even remember being admitted in the hospital. My sickness doesn’t go beyond headache and taking a little aspirin or Panadol to stop it. And that’s it.
“Looking back many years down the memory lane, I never ever I imagined I could be this big.”
For hours, Mrs. Inyang, the woman who cooked her way to riches talked about how she started with little or nothing as an itinerant cake seller, how she opened her first restaurant, the challenges she met along the way and how she branched out to other towns and cities.
“Running a restaurant is a difficult business,” she says. “You wake up early, it consumes your time. At the initial time I was using firewood, so it was not really easy. It’s really very tasking. You wake early and you close late. And there is nothing like rest in the afternoon. It just runs on and on like that.
“I have never employed any cook ever since the inception of Jevinik. I trained every cook that is cooking for me. Like baking, cooking for me is a hobby too. I learnt some from Igbo and I learnt some from Calabar. And I married the two. That has been the secret of Jevinik’s success. And we keep adding other Nigerian cuisines like the efo riro of the Yorubas which is very delicious. The Calabars have a lot of delicacies. So, going there, learning it and knowing it has helped. As an Igbo lady married to Calabar, I had to learn how to cook the Calabar way. And Owerris of Imo State are also celebrated for the cooking skills such that there is a soup called Ofe Owerri.”
Her story is a triumph of enterprise and she has this to say about entrepreneurs: “Entrepreneurs are people that are really smart, people that don’t want to take no for an answer. Someone who will not say: ‘I have given up. I have been defeated.’ Entrepreneur is someone who never gives up. People who still want to run when they are tired. They are the real entrepreneur. In a way, I see myself as an entrepreneur.”
On that score, we wouldn’t want to pre-empt our book. Suffice to say that the story of Mrs. Inyang and how she founded the Jevinik chain of restaurants which is growing to be a big Nigerian brand even without advertising support but sheer word of mouth is a highly interesting case study of entrepreneurial success story.
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