Business owner Abdul Shiraz has invested more than $100,000 to boost his company sales as well as meet customer demands.

Arabian Café and Cakes has expanded from making pastries and sandwiches to a full dining experience including a kava bar.

“First of all before it was a coffee and a cake shop so now we have expanded it to a restaurant and kava bar with the pool table,” he said.

“In restaurant we have Indian cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Arabian cuisine and seafood. “So they can expect everything, each and every meal over here.”

He said there were around 23 seafood dishes but they also served chicken, beef as well as lamb.

“So we have done an indoor seating, as well as outdoor seating.

“The kava lovers can enjoy their kava outdoor like under the bure or under the umbrella seating as well and enjoy with the pool table as well as watch sports or news on TV.

“And if they bring their family we also have a kids corner inside actually so they can enjoy their meal peacefully.”

Mr Shiraz said a total of 36 people could be seated indoors with around 40 to 50 sittings for the outdoor seating.

“It will be expanded more depending on the customer numbers. “We are really expecting more customers, because we already have corporate clients like Reserve Bank of Fiji, BSP and even from ANZ who would come for the cakes and coffee but now we’ll be open like a restaurant, we have all the meals over here so definitely we’ll be getting more customers.”

Mr Shiraz said before the expansion they had five staff members working for them but with the expansion they had hired an additional 10 new employees as they would cover two shifts. He said they hired two chefs who had more than 30 years experience working in various sectors.

Business however has been picking up slowly since the opening of the local borders and ease of restrictions around the country. According to Mr Shiraz the expansion would be a great boost for his company as they were providing a lot of options for their customers. “So the cakes were going well but the coffee was really slow.

“We are hoping that the restaurant will be going good because it’s like a food industry and it goes well and we also have the kava too.

“This is a demand from our customer actually, they said that our coffee, our sandwich, everything was really good even the cakes was really good.

“So they were asking to get more things so that’s why we expanded into the restaurant.” He said the restaurant was in their future expansion plan however the idea of setting up a kava bar was something that came from their customers as it was in demand.

Mr Shiraz said there weren’t a lot of kava bars within the city area as most of them were situated outside of the area.

“I haven’t seen that but in the city area I haven’t seen a kava bar with the restaurant.

“So maybe if like the whole family came, they can enjoy both sides with their food and with the kava too.”

Mr Shiraz added in the future they would be adding a liquor option too as they were awaiting their liquor licence.