When one door closes, another one opens

When the restaurant Ester Silas (27) had worked for since 2015 closed shop in 2023, she was left in despair.

However, lucky for her, the Nedbank Kapana Cook-Off 2023 competition was launched and Silas entered.

She won and walked away with the grand prize of a mobile food trailer.

Within a month, Silas officially opened her own fast-food business in Greenwell Matongo at Katutura.

Silas has stationed her mobile food truck, which is worth N$100 000, at home, where she hopes to cater for her community.
She has named her business Stars Kitchen and launched it on 30 September.

“The residents of the area are very supportive of my venture,” says the eldest of five siblings.

Although she does most of the work herself, Silas’ two cousins are helping, especially after school and over weekends.

“But I am already teaching them how to prepare food. When the situation allows, I will hire someone on a full-time basis,” Silas says.

“I will work every day to have a menu which carries a selection of food to cater to different people. As I am still new to the market, I know this will be an intense job,” she says.

“There is a lot of competition in the food business, so I must push hard to get my name out there,” she says.

The menu at Stars Kitchen includes kapana, goat and sheep head, angel fish, matangara, mopani worms, pap, macaroni, rice, Oshiwambo chicken, hot dogs, chips, and beef stew.

Silas says some people phone to place orders for lunch, and her biggest challenge is to ensure that all the food she prepares is sold.

“I give the leftover food to children on the street, because I cannot keep it for sale the following day,” the Windhoek-born young entrepreneur says.

She says this year was the fourth time she had entered the Nedbank Kapana Cook-Off competition, in which she came third in the last three years.

“This year I was well prepared and I was confident as I worked with the ingredients. We were given 40 minutes to prepare the beef kapana, salsa, as well as a kapenta fish (ontangu) and chicken feet – which had to be boneless.

“These had to be served with pap, fat cakes or traditional bread,” she says, adding that the secret was to keep everything as Namibian as possible.

Nedbank Namibia spokesperson Selma Kaulinge lauds Silas on starting her own business.

“Silas is truly the definition of the adage ‘some people dream of success, while other people get up every morning and make it happen’.

“Seeing her open her business just a month after winning the ninth edition of the Nedbank Kapana Cook-Off competition says a lot about the person she is.

“Her determination from the onset of the competition is a story we should all be inspired by. At Nedbank Namibia, our purpose is embedded in everything we do and goes beyond the financial support we render – it also encompasses nurturing dreams and enabling growth,” Kaulinge says.

Silas plans to expand her business and open more branches in the next five years.

Her advice to young people who want to follow in her footsteps is to stay focused and take their work seriously.

– email: matthew@namibian.com.na