We envision Tolstoy as an innovative software-driven restaurant company. Why software?

While working on the Tolstoy menu we kept in mind two main things: the traditions of the past and the technologies of the future.

First time we had heard of Tolstoy, we right away thought about a colourful, funky and fresh-looking place (think vegan, young, trendy).

A right kitchen concept is a deal breaker in the food service industry. That is why we have given our Tolstoy kitchen concept a lot of thought.

A bit more than a year ago, I decided that I wanted to open my restaurant. However, I’ve never before worked in a restaurant. Where do you start, what do you do? I didn’t know.

The fact that we didn’t manage to finish the Tolstoy construction came to be a blessing in disguise (we were supposed to open before corona).

We started to look for a location for our first restaurant in the beginning of March 2019. We got the location by October 2019 – so, it took us around 8 months, which is forever to be honest.

When we first had an idea of opening a vegan restaurant chain, we right away started to think how to name it.

As a business owner, my first answer is, of course, financial attractiveness. There is a lot of money in this market.

Why did I decide to go into the food/restaurant business, one of the toughest businesses there is? It is a conventional wisdom that 90% of the restaurants fail in the first year.

How do you start a project, which sounds crazy and, in the beginning, makes sense only to you? How do you even start anything? I personally have faced all of these questions in the last several years.