Omar Fathy wants to ruin your diet. The CEO of Divine Worx, the company behind the popular Makani sushi chain as well as Burger Joint, Zo and El Sit Hosneya, laughs that pampering people is one of his favorite aspects of being in the food industry.
“I like to feed people, to pamper them. If you’re on a diet I do my best to make you eat. I create my own recipes, I believe in having an orgasmic food experience.”
Fathy’s enthusiasm and acute business sense recently earned Divine Worx the support of Endeavor Egypt, a non-profit organization that offers entrepreneurs access to mentors, networks and potential investors. Endeavor’s International Selection Panel chose Divine Worx, along with two other Egyptian companies, earlier this month to receive its support. Judges included Naguib Sawiris of Orascom Telecom and Edgar Bronfman of Warner Music Group.
Fathy plans to open at least four more restaurant outlets in 2010, bringing the total to 16, and hopes that over the next two years, the chain will grow to 24 locations. His first restaurant opened only eight years ago, a small bakery called Makani in Khadaba, Sharm El-Sheikh. At the time, Fathy explains, “there was nowhere to eat affordably in Sharm.”
The bakery quickly drew crowds for its low prices and high quality food. After gaining momentum, Fathy raised prices to profitable levels, and his loyal customers stayed.
The low-cost, high quality model has also driven his success with his "self-franchised" Makani sushi. Divine Worx’s most popular chain first introduced affordable sushi to Egyptian diners, sparking a craze of sushi restaurants in Cairo that can rarely compete on price.
Fathy explains that his willingness to take risks has driven his success.
“I don’t know if [the risks I take] are stupid or not but so far they’ve paid off. I’m waiting for my risk-taking to catch up with me. Opening my company was a big risk; I sold my car to get the money for a partnership with someone I didn’t know.”
A long passion for food motivated Fathy’s desire to open a restaurant. After opening Makani Bakery, he explained, “At night I would dream of recipes [for new sandwiches] and kept a logbook next to my bed to jot them down in the morning.” At age 22 he had convinced his boss to open an Indian restaurant in the Camel Hotel in Sharm; it achieved immediate popularity. He calls this experience, “one of my first successful moments.”
Fathy acknowledges that his current success resulted partially from the support of his wife, “and my mother pushing me to take summer jobs,” he laughs. However, he feels that his absent father represented a significant factor pushing him to thrive, despite Egypt’s dicey entrepreneurial environment.
“When I look back at things, I had a difficult childhood. My mother did her best; she was divorced and my father didn’t support us. As a traditional local family, parents support their kids until they’re 35 years old in Egypt. Living in a community where everyone has a father supporting him was hard. I learned not to wait for anyone’s assistance, not to depend on anyone, to do it myself.”
Divine Worx’s growing empire includes outlets on the North Coast, in Sharm and Alexandria. In Cairo, Dokki, Heliopolis, Maadi, Mohandisseen and Zamalek now host one or several Divine Worx branches, whether serving Asian food in Makani or Zo, Egyptian in El Sit Hosneya or American at Burger Joint.
Fathy described the latest Makani outlet in Zamalek, “The concept was handmade. I made the guy paint with his hands not a brush; the left wall when you walk in is all hand-done.”
Yet food remains the centerpiece of Fathy’s business model and success. He reminisces about his childhood, when the majority of foods he serves couldn’t be found in Egypt.
“Things have moved forward in Egypt in the past five years. The availability of food — it used to be that getting Heinz ketchup was a big thing. Imported food was expensive, even a can of Coke was expensive. That was the mid 80s.”
Yet as a businessperson, he explains, “The biggest challenge is not the suppliers but the government, unfortunately. I compare working in Egypt to walking for 10 kilometers. If you’re in a decent country where they support people, like the US or Canada or Europe, everything is easier. A man working in Egypt walks the same 10 kilometers, but pulling a load of 80 kilograms by chains. He will make it, but it’s that much harder.
“Given the corruption in Egypt we have a system in which [it feels as if] everyone is living in his own country. You see it in the way people are dealing with each other. They park and block the whole road, because they don’t care for anyone else. This is selfishness out of loneliness, because we’re alone. Still, I don’t want to give a bad impression.”
He believes that for entrepreneurship in Egypt to flourish, the culture will have to change.
This article is part of a monthly series on promising entrepreneurs that will run inDaily News Egypt in collaboration with Endeavor Egypt. Endeavor is an international non-profit organization promoting high impact entrepreneurship in emerging countries as the leading force for sustainable economic development.
