California Pub

The restaurant & setting. This time Martin Novák heads „to California", though not the overseas one but to Ružomberok, where the California Pub sits on the Klačno housing estate. He finds the name itself bizarre and the place looks like „a nice jigsaw, a little Lego set". The name is no accident: it was christened that way because the owner of the premises lives in California. The restaurant has been running for three years.

The people. It is run by Lukáš Ivanov, a 39-year-old native of Ružomberok who was born on this very estate. After thirteen years in England, six of them as a cook, he decided to spontaneously launch his own place and even sold his three-room flat to do it. Beside him stands his wife Alenka (Martin also calls her Lenka), who is gradually coordinating the business more and more. The kitchen and service rotate around waitress Klaudia and two part-time cooks, Paťo, who has a second job, and Nika, who is still on maternity leave.

Why they called Martin. From a former thirty deliveries a day only five or six remain; the place used to fill up a few times a month over summer, this year only once. Lukáš has been struggling for three years, borrowing money to survive, and even as a cook his pay does not add up. One and a half cooks against a huge menu and empty tables, that is the heart of the problem.

The first visit. Martin arrives for lunch at an empty restaurant where nobody comes for ten minutes, until he has to go and ask whether it is self-service. The menu lists 65 dishes, „another Mr. Maťo who wants to please everyone". The pizza has raw dough and edges, the 11.60-euro burger is plain canteen fare with meat „totally overcooked", the wings reek of old fryer oil even though the staff insist it is fresh. The worst comes after an hour and twenty minutes of waiting: soggy potatoes swimming in juice, hard rubbery fusilli reheated in the microwave, and undercooked risotto with canned passata. „The tragedy of Slovak gastronomy continues," Martin remarks.

The diagnosis. Martin calls everyone into the kitchen and names the root cause plainly: one person cannot cook well for thirty people, the microwave finishes absolutely everything, and the place is „a little microwave kingdom". On top of that the kitchen is deliberately crippled by penny-pinching, the grill stashed below, the stove's control knobs removed, the convection oven unused, worn pans on which the meat tears apart. „Sixty-five dishes is nonsense," he says, and what angers him most is that Lukáš has an excuse ready for everything.

The reset. Martin decides to open Lukáš's eyes with a stress test: into a place that was meant to be closed he sends twenty guests and puts Lukáš alone at the stove. He fails, the guests leave after forty minutes, and the burger comes back undercooked. Martin then visits his old Ružomberok school to see Mrs. Maceková at the vocational training, gives the pupils a small onion-chopping test, and recruits the three most skilled third-years, Dominik, Dominika, and Miško, to help out for the evening. Lukáš also gets new pans.

New concept & menu. Instead of a rebrand Martin builds on a concept of events: every venue needs a programme that draws people in, a retro night, a Mexican one, a jazz one, anything. He builds a stage with lights and sound in the venue, usable for karaoke too. For tonight he prepares honest old-school retro cooking, potato salad, Russian eggs, and beef rouladen, plated the way they used to do it at home.

The big night. As a musical guest Martin invites the charming singer Eva Mazíková, who truly livens up the evening. The kitchen, however, falters again: the servers fail to split sections, chaos reigns, some tables wait up to an hour and a half for a main course while the kitchen stands idle. When the pork runs out, Lukáš improvises with chicken schnitzels. The food that finally reaches the tables is praised by the guests, especially the starters and the rouladen. At the close Martin singles out quiet Nika, „the grey mouse in the kitchen", and reminds Lukáš that he can be proud of his wife.

One month later. A month on, Martin returns to a well-running California. The events have taken off according to Facebook, the place is alive with birthdays, balls, and a Valentine's menu. Lukáš dropped the retro menu but introduced fit dishes such as vegetarian borscht and spinach pancakes. The biggest leap was made by Alenka, who now genuinely coordinates the place. Martin praises the borscht, the fit pancake does not win him over, the spaghetti needed a minute and a half less in the water, but overall he sees the place has come back to life.

Verdict: Martin awards the California Pub 2 knives. The rating is proportionate to the progress the team has made, though Martin reminds Lukáš that he still fails to put a full stop after every sentence and a long road lies ahead. The lovely events and Alenka's coordination are, in his view, what will help the place the most.