The beginning
Fritischy started a little more than a year ago, as an employee, to rebuild the business, because the business wasn’t doing too well. 8 months ago, he was able to take over the restaurant / cafe. When he sees the growth that they are experiencing, he feels proud: ,,I think it’s special to get a hospitality business back on track; we still see growth every month. So that’s really very positive.” The current goals are to expand further and to get the most out of the business in the next 5-10 years. In general, the restaurant is well on track for the evening; but they would like breakfast and lunch to get busier too.
Digital era
The majority of the company is already fully digitalized. They became quite dependent on the digital world as all POS systems are digital and most promotion and marketing is digital. Fritischy believes that being digital is something that will only continue to get bigger. For example, many reservations come in via mail and Whatsapp, less and less people actually call and ordering food via Whatsapp is also getting more common. Besides the reservations becoming fully digitalized, they are also working on placing more screens for football
Digital profile and Social Media
Fritischy invests a lot in online promotion. There for Hillside works with a person, because promotion is important. Social Media is a big pro, because with Social Media a company can really distinguish itself. It makes it much easier for people to see what a company stands for.
And certainly with Hillside’s location it helps; they are not in a location where a tourist would easily come. ,,If you’re located somewhere on the boulevard, people will come along anyway, but people really have to look for us. When people see good, positive things about us on Facebook then they will be more eager to go look for us, which is a big plus,” thus Fritischy.
Thanks to social media, companies can now advertise and make sure that a big amount of people will see their ads. Therefore, it’s easier to get people to come. Fritischy believes that if they had started this business 10 years ago, it would have taken much longer before people would have heard about them.
A TV-wall & a Race simulator
Hillside has a huge screen of 4.5 meters and a great projector, but it is not possible to broadcast multiple programs at the same time. Fritischy is working on creating a wall of TVs; 5 large TVs are on their way. There will be a specialized system behind all of it, so they can broadcast different things on different screens.
Race Simulator
They are also working on a professional race simulator, which has been ordered in the US and is currently on its way. Formula 1 has, thanks to our friend Max Verstappen, enormously peaked in terms of interest from the Dutch.
On Sunday mornings they experience a growth in people interested in the race. There is more and more demand for those qualifications, but at first Fritischy wasn’t sure if it would be interesting to broadcast or not, because of football.
Fritischy: ,,On Saturday we will start broadcasting the qualifications and then afterwards we will have a competition where people can race themselves.”
The race simulator is a major investment, and with help from Haafkes Bouw Bonaire and Highway ICT Fritischy is able get it off the ground.