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After learning the restaurant trade at a McDonald's in Canada, Jody Cheung now heads a chain with 30 outlets in Hong Kong
Hong Kong is rightly feted as a gourmet's paradise, with thousands of restaurants representing every cuisine. Over the years, this food culture has cultivated a discerning public, who expect value for money and tantalising taste.
The net result is a tough, competitive market for anyone hoping to open a restaurant, especially if they are from out of town.
It's a far cry indeed from working at a McDonald's restaurant in Canada, but that is where Jody Cheung,  managing director of the King Parrot Group,  learned the ropes of the restaurant trade.
'It's a while back now, but my first job was in a McDonald's restaurant in Vancouver, one of the earliest ones in Canada. And the more I did it, the more I got to like it,' Mr Cheung said.
That was in 1968, when he was 18 years old. It was his intention to go on to university to study engineering or architecture, but he enjoyed his restaurant work so much that he decided to skip university.
His decision was partly influenced by an offer of promotion.
'After working part time for three years, McDonald's offered me a position as a manager which I accepted and, in fact, I was one of the [chain's] first Chinese managers in Canada,' he said.
He worked for McDonald's for a further seven years, during which time he decided he wanted to start his own business. 'I learned a lot with McDonald's and felt sufficiently experienced to give it a go myself. I opened my first restaurant in 1978 - selling 'healthy' fast food. It was called Vegetable Patch.'
The basic idea was to transfer the fast-food concept to the healthy arena. 'We had a salad bar and healthy sandwiches - pretty much the exact opposite of McDonald's,' he said. The concept was new and innovative, and it took off. 'On the west coast, in Canada and California, healthy food is very popular and we caught the beginning of the health boom. I opened three other outlets,' he said.
Following on from that success, Mr Cheung branched out into fine dining, opening other restaurants and working in the Vancouver area until the early 1990s, when he and his wife decided to try Hong Kong. He had roots here, which helped - his family having originally moved from Hong Kong to Canada when he was 12 years old. However, things didn't go smoothly at first.
'It was tough because our experience was more inclined to a western style of restaurant business, and there were some cultural differences to deal with. Initially, we found that staff here tended to follow orders, whereas back in Canada we were used to them making more of a contribution to the business, such as suggesting ways of improving the service. But of course you have to adapt. So we spent a lot of time in retraining staff to suit our needs,' he said.
Having seen a niche in the market, their first business in Hong Kong was a Spanish restaurant. Next, they opened a chain of pubs, which they called Parrot Pubs, making them more comfortable than most other bars at the time, which were a bit rough and ready, and with a greater choice of beers. The pubs did well, so they decided to call the restaurant group King Parrot.
After that came some Thai restaurants and a gradual progression towards fine dining. By 2000, King Parrot had 15 outlets. The group now operates 30 outlets in Hong Kong, with 22 brand names offering a slew of dining experiences, such as Balalaika for Russian cuisine, El Cid for Spanish, Chilli N Spice for Asian tastes, Heaven On Earth for Chinese and Shanghai Mian.
Now one of the biggest restaurant groups in town, Mr Cheung attributes success to several factors, but especially important is striking the right balance of atmosphere, quality and price for target customers.
'I'd classify most of our restaurants as fine dining, but with a fun, relaxing atmosphere. We also offer interesting cuisines such as Russian and Turkish, and our Chinese restaurants have a contemporary, fresh approach but with some traditional elements - it's a mix that appeals to younger customers especially,' he said.
About 80 per cent of King Parrot's customers are locals with expatriates making up the remainder and this mixture requires some fine-tuning.
'We tailor our dishes to local tastes. Some dishes from Spain or Russia, for example, might be too strong tasting so we might adjust them a little to suit our clients,' Mr Cheung said.
Looking to the future, some of the group's restaurants are due for renovation, and this will provide a focus over the coming months.
'After about eight or so years a restaurant can get a bit jaded, so our plan now is to upgrade the decor at some of our older outlets and some of our menus,' he said.
One of the main difficulties these days, he said, was getting the right staff.
'These past two years or so, many local restaurant staff have gone to the new hotels in Macau, and we're also finding that a lot of young people aren't moving into the food and beverage business, they seem to prefer office work,' Mr Cheung said.
Consequently, King Parrot provides a lot of staff training and tries hard to retain staff by offering pay incentives, prizes and special benefits.
Ten Things I Know
1 Understand the business before jumping into it. You have to know what you're getting into, and these days it's more complicated to open a restaurant and costs a lot more money than it used to.
2 Talk to the experts before spending your money. You need to talk to restaurant managers or owners to find out how to run a restaurant. Just putting money into a business is not enough.
3 Prepare to work long hours. People often think that managing a restaurant is an easy job and that the staff can run it for you. But I know that restaurants managed by 'absentee' managers don't work as well. To succeed you need to work hard, talk to regular customers and keep an eye on what's going on.
4 You need to be good with people. Of course the food is important but your man-management skills are important too, and it helps if you can strike up a good relationship with your customers - it encourages people to return.
5 You need to be a jack of all trades. You will be a business manager, HR manager, financial controller, procurement and marketing manager, food and beverage expert, and interior designer.
6 Learn from your competitors. Keep track of your competitors because they might have some good ideas you didn't think of. Or, they might copy your own ideas and, if they do, it helps to know about it.
7 Stay in tune with trends. Tastes change, lifestyles change and people get older. You need to stay up to date with these changes in society and catch any new opportunities.
8 Remember that you are not the best. I never say that we have reached the top - there is always room for improvement.
9 Upgrade yourself. There are all sorts of things that you can still learn, no matter how long you've been in the business. Things like wine knowledge, new foods, new products - keep learning!
10 Don't get emotionally attached to your business. If your business doesn't work you have to give it up. Alternatively, if someone makes you a good offer you should consider accepting it.



Savouring success