Motorest na Hôrke

The restaurant & setting. Season two opens with Martin Novák in Hliník nad Hronom, home to Motorest na Hôrke, a classic roadside motel-restaurant that once burst at the seams. The sign claims a restaurant stands here, but the lot looks more like a scrapyard and Martin makes no secret of considering motorests a relic. The current owners have been running it for some thirteen years, and their whole trouble began when the highway was rerouted and the traffic bypassed the place.

The people. The owner, operator and cook all in one is Zdenka Olajcová, a self-taught woman behind the stove who is expecting her second child and has a twelve-year-old daughter at home. Her brother Juraj Olajec owns the building and runs the place, and for the restaurant's sake he had to sell his own house, while his workshop still subsidizes the loss-making motorest. The kitchen and floor are staffed entirely by mothers: waitress Jana, who fills in as cook too, cook Barbara (Baja), a thirty-year-old with six years of experience, delivery driver Marcela and Majka.

Why they called Martin. The restaurant has been in the red for thirteen years and survives only because the brother pours money into it from his own business. Zdenka is such a softie that she is ashamed to charge people more, keeps the menu at five euros with soup, and admits she is running charity for herself rather than a business. The goal is clear: get the motorest at least to break even so it no longer has to be subsidized forever.

The first visit. Martin orders almost the entire menu and one by one it floors him. The broccoli soup with blue cheese is just warm water with no taste and reeks of burnt roux, while the so-called sailor's sauté has nothing to do with the sea, it is dried-out pork with peach, ham and cheese in a curdled sauce. The stuffed schnitzel is actually unstuffed, extremely thick and tough as a shoe sole, and in two dishes Martin finds a hair. The verdict is harsh: „To je za 20 rokov mojej existencie v kuchyniach to najhoršie jedlo, ktoré som jedol."

The diagnosis. Martin reveals that the problem is not just the food but the system that is missing here. Nobody has defined who does what, the girls all want to stay on Zdenka's good side because she never raises her voice, and so nobody tries. The back rooms, fridges and toilets are neglected, and the whole place runs on solar panels, a generator and batteries, so the power cuts out even three or four times a day. The most emotional moment comes when Zdenka admits she is going on maternity leave in two months and has no idea how the restaurant will function without her.

The reset. The very next day the girls launch into a big clean-up on their own, which pleases Martin, because for the first time he sees that they care about the place. He brings them leaflets to finally get deliveries going and let nearby companies know about them, and he sends the whole team and their children on a trip to Family Park in Austria, since they are all mothers. New equipment arrives from Gastrokuchyne.sk, mugs, cutlery and a non-slip floor, and Martin shows the girls the costing and norms they had never seen in their lives.

New concept & menu. Martin decides the motorest is history and renames the place Reštaurácia u mami, because all the women in the kitchen are mothers and the best food, after all, is the one at mum's. The serving is homely, shared portions in a nice mug that evokes the family table. The new menu is built on honest home cooking: cabbage soup, bean soup from broad beans, creamy garlic soup, goulash, lentil stew with a meatball and roast pork neck with a bread dumpling and braised cabbage, finished with Moravian pastries and a yeast cake with plum that guests can take away in a box.

The big night. At the closing dinner Zdenka only supervises and the kitchen is led by Jana together with Baja, who finally find a shared system even under pressure. The kitchen holds up, but the floor is one big uncontrollable mess at first, because the right hand has no idea what the left is doing. Even so the dishes go out as they should, the bean soup is excellent and the guests leave happy, so Martin praises the girls for doing a good job and giving their time to Zdenka.

One month later. A month on Martin returns to Hliník nad Hronom and the parking lot is fairly full, the Reštaurácia u mami banner still hangs and the fridges are finally clean. Zdenka is already home on maternity leave and the girls keep it going on their own: the bean soup, roast pork neck and segedín goulash are good and Martin has no complaints about the food. He is only sorry the new menu does not really work and runs more as a special on the board, but people have started praising the food more and come around more often.

Verdict: Martin awards Reštaurácia u mami 3 knives. It is recognition of honest home cooking, satisfied guests and a team of mothers who pulled together and gave the place a push, but with the message that they still have things to work on, above all making the new menu truly work.