A LESSON IN RESLIENCY

An inspirational message and a great lesson in resiliency from Chef Donovan Gomes of Toronto’s @thechickencartel_to in a recent piece by @menumagca.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Donovan was laid off from @elcatrinca — the largest Mexican restaurant in the 6ix. Instead of tossing in the towel, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work on a new project — a pop-up kitchen that he soon hopes to transition into a more permanent brick-and-mortar operation.

While appreciative of government funding at the outset, it wasn’t enough to live on long-term, so he had to create his own opportunities in order to support his family.

“I had a number of business concepts and narrowed it down to chicken. It is affordable, versatile and consumed in many peoples’ homes,” he says “There are so many chicken joints in this city, but I (wanted) to use chicken as the vehicle to celebrate the ethnicities in Toronto that I have been exposed to all my life.”

While he faced some initial challenges in the early stages when it came to start-up and working capital, he has learned new skills along the way that have served him well when it comes to looking at the future of his new venture.

“I’m digesting information that I was never exposed to as an employee. I had to learn things about business ownership,” he says. “It has been a good learning experience in website design and photography.”

For more on Chef Donovan’s unique successful-reinvention-in-the-time-of-COVID story, check out the latest issue of @menumagazine.

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