Reštaurácia Záhrada (Hangar)

The restaurant & setting. Martin Novák films the fifth episode of the first season of Na Nože in Nitra, Slovakia's fifth-largest city, below Zobor hill. On the very edge of town, on Mykov dvor among warehouses and halls, stands the restaurant Záhrada. It is an unusual place built from shipping containers, which the owner put together literally with his own hands. The problem is that it lies so far from the centre and so inconspicuously that almost nobody knows it exists. Martin fights his way to it through an industrial zone and passers-by cannot even point him the way. „Sem by som ani v Bosne nezablúdil," he quips when he finally finds the entrance with a toilet brush right by the door.

The people. The owner is Martin Pajer, who goes by Maťo. He is a one-man band: head chef, manager, stockman, director and buyer all at once. The floor is run by the girls, above all the more outspoken waitress Viktória, who also handles the place's Instagram, and her quieter colleague Diana. In the kitchen he is helped by a part-timer who admits he loves cooking but only does it on the side, because he has to provide for his family. Maťo has a little daughter, Ela, and a wife who, in his words, gave up a year ago, because she basically never saw her husband, who was always at work.

Why they called Martin. The restaurant is dying. After a beautiful summer with a full terrace came another lockdown, the clientele thinned out and takings fall every month. Maťo is roughly 45 thousand euros in the red, has not been on holiday since 2017, and barely ten to twenty people come for lunch, after which nobody comes at all. He himself is thinking of closing or subletting the place, even though he does not even own the land. He dreamed of having his own restaurant and seeing himself in it as a happy chef with a happy family, but, as he puts it himself, „všetko je opačne".

The first visit. Martin sits down as an ordinary guest and immediately runs into chaos. There is an old menu on the table from several months ago, the promised gnocchi are suddenly off, and the staff cannot advise him. The vegetable cream soup is very far from a cream, just a lukewarm watery broth. The Texas steak arrives cold, because the stoves have broken, so the thumb goes down. At the same time, though, the meat is seasoned superbly, the risotto is tasty even if made from ordinary rice, and the pizza is genuinely excellent. „Moja cesta okolo sveta na konci sveta v Nitre začína," Martin sums up over a menu that is a cross-section of everything possible, from burgers through pizza to Asia.

The diagnosis. Martin's verdict is harsh: this is not a restaurant, because a restaurant needs to be full of customers at lunchtime. Maťo may be a good cook, but he has no clue about running a business. The biggest problem, however, Martin sees in the owner himself, who is stubborn, does not listen to his staff and never praises anyone. The confrontation spills out years of tension, the waitress bursts into tears and admits that nobody ever appreciates the effort. „Tvoj podnik je v sračkách," Martin says bluntly, adding that Maťo has to grab every hand offered to him, including the Instagram one Viktória held out long ago.

The reset. Martin takes Maťo on a tour of Nitra to show him that kebabs, Chinese bistros, sushi and pizza are already everywhere. He brings a concept the town lacks: meatballs, mäsové guličky, which the guest builds for themselves to taste. There is a beef, pork and lamb version, falafel for vegetarians and sweet curd balls for little Ela. For the floor Martin invites a friend and colleague, who teaches the girls how to sell the food and advise the guest, instead of just tossing a menu onto the table. Meanwhile Maťo is handed the keys and finally goes off to enjoy some free time with his daughter, horse-riding.

New concept & menu. The high point of the makeover is a rebrand. Martin takes the whole team to Nitra airport and reveals that the restaurant is no longer called Záhrada, but Hangár. The new name, new logo and industrial feel suit the container space by the airport better than the old Záhrada, and the team likes it. The heart of the menu is the meatballs with sides, rice noodles, mashed potatoes and an Asian dressing, plus falafel for vegetarians. Viktória meanwhile kicks off the promotion on Instagram with an invitation for Nitra locals and a playful „pozor na turbulencie".

The big night. The test service in the new Hangár turns into a proper drama. The lamb meat is tough and only defrosted at the last moment, the falafel gets four hundred grams of black root instead of forty, the potatoes run out, the breaker trips and the staff keep slipping outside for a cigarette. Maťo cannot give orders, so everyone does everything and nobody does anything, and the dishes go cold on the pass again. Martin is several times on the verge of walking out, but in the end he organises the team into stations, where one makes the balls, another the sides and he watches the plating. Despite the chaos the guests enjoy the food and leave satisfied.

One month later. With hindsight the result is mixed. Maťo got cold feet about the renaming and worries about the new concept, so the restaurant now carries two names and two concepts at once: Hangár offers the meatballs and Záhrada still runs a daily lunch menu. Lunch still draws only about ten people a day on average. The interpersonal relations have improved, though, the team has started to cooperate more, and Viktória even claims the boss now praises her occasionally. Financially Maťo is still in a very bad spot, but he hopes that with better weather and the terrace open, takings will rise again.

Verdict: The first season of Na Nože did not yet have the knife rating, so Martin awards no score and gives only a verbal assessment. This time it is mixed. The transformation is a success when it comes to the food, the atmosphere and the relationships: a readable meatball concept was born, the place got a new name, Hangár, and a more confident floor, and the owner finally learned to notice and praise his team. At the same time Maťo did not see the courage through to the end, kept the old Záhrada running alongside the Hangár, lunch still draws few people, and the business remains financially on the edge. Martin leaves it in Maťo's hands with the message that the future is bright, but only if he becomes a good leader of his team.