A taste of Tribes

FoodFund International credits Tribes, Mall of Emirates Fashion Dome's success to its 62-strong team of enigmatic servers and chefs

People power
The “people” Van Jaarsveld refers to is a team of 62 members of staff at Tribes, all hand picked from African tribes including Xosa, Nguni, Tawareq, Shona, Luhyia and Kikuyu.

“These people still hold on to the codes of conduct of the tribe, and yet they live in the modern world,” explains Ibrahim. “So we celebrated the juxtaposition of the modern world meeting and joining very harmoniously with the traditional tribal world.”

Van Jaarsveld continues: “The natural culture within the African continent creates a very exciting, music-oriented, celebratory type of personality all over Africa. When you give them a little bit of freedom to express themselves these passionate people can change your experience completely — and I think that is what comes across here. We’ve given them the latitude to express themselves”.

Story continues below

Throughout training, staff were educated on FoodFund’s “superlative service standards” but also encouraged to be themselves, asserts Ibrahim.

“We hired you because of your great personality, your enigmatic personality, so don’t you shy away from that, bring it out every day,” she says.

The result of this approach at FoodFund International is a “negligible” level of staff
turnover, says Van Jaarsveld.

“I’ve been in F&B for 16 years, for the first time I’ve seen senior managers who are good listeners,” says Romdhani.

FoodFund International commercial manager Rob de Villiers explains that this is part of the company’s overriding management philosophy. When Tribes was being reinvented for Dubai, he says there was no hierarchy in the development team: “Everybody had an area of accountability and responsibility and what’s happened is each individual within the team post-opening has held onto that accountability and responsibility on a continued basis”.

“It cascades down through this company,” says Van Jaarsveld. “FoodFund International in the Middle East has created a work environment where every individual has a voice.

“I’ve been in this business 36 years, I’ve never worked in a company where everybody’s opinion is important. That doesn’t mean your idea is necessarily taken and worked with, it means that you have a voice. The personalities and the egos disappear and we drill down to what is important; it’s the decision making on a business basis,” he adds.

The next step
Going forward, the company is keen to retain the exclusivity of the brand. “We don’t see a Tribes in every mall in Dubai,” says De Villiers. “As far as Dubai is concerned, there will only be one Tribes, What we do see is a Tribes in the major cities in the region.”

He said Tribes had exceeded revenue expectations, but to maintain its “integrity”, slow growth was necessary, Van Jaarsveld reveals: “We have been inundated with interest from around the world from prospective partners ... it’s been unprecedented the amount of interest we’ve had in one brand in such a short time. It’s been mind-boggling.

“We will carefully monitor the pace of growth and the areas of opportunity,” he adds.
When it comes to where new outlets will be located, the talkative team becomes quiet, although De Villiers says there are plans for the next Tribes restaurants to have liquor licences.

He also hints that there could be a fourth, or fifth brand to enter the FoodFund International stable in the Middle East.

“We’ve developed two distinct areas under new business development — one that is existing brands, The Meat Co. Tribes, Ribs and Rumps — and we’ve launched an area that will fall under a venture capital banner where the development of new brands takes place,” says De Villiers, adding that the firm would also consider taking on management contracts.

If a new brand follows, and when Tribes opens its second outlet in the UAE, one thing is certain: they will be led by a company dedicated to offering tasty food in a fun setting. What more could you ask for?