Serial entrepreneur Craig Rawlings has traded the world of tech development for a cook’s apron in a pair of Tallinn Mexican restaurants. That is, at least until he franchises it.
Three years ago, Craig Rawlings often found himself in the air between cities, competing for e-parking contracts in the metropolises of the globe. He was CEO of e-Park, a mobile parking business, his thirteenth tech-related business venture. When he happened to be in Estonia, he served as President of the American Chamber of Commerce, taking an active enough part in the community to win him recognition from President Toomas Hendrik Ilves in the form of the state's Order of the White Star. So it came as a surprise for some who knew him when he gave up the more glamorous tech life and strapped on an apron to roll burritos in a Kopli storefront.
His new venture – his first foray into the food service industry – came not only as a surprise to his friends, but perhaps even to Rawlings himself. “I fought owning a restaurant for long time,” he said. “I love to cook. At home, my wife doesn’t cook. I do it all.”
Loving to cook was not the only inspiration behind his restaurant venture. Rawlings considers himself an armchair economist. “If you look back four years ago,” he said, “you’ll see an article I wrote in Äripäev where I fairly accurately predicted the economic downturn. I recommended currency devaluation then, and I still believe it was a mistake to go after the euro.” Rawlings is not a big believer in holding currency, and so he sought alternatives to invest the cash he had on hand at the time. “If you go back in history and look at which businesses do well in tough economic times, you’ll see that low-cost family restaurants sail through recessions. I thought why not create an asset which could survive a recession?”
Despite a love for cooking, Rawlings’ vision was in large part calculated and unemotional. He spent weeks in the Kopli area counting foot traffic. He spent serious sums dining in Boheme and Moon, two successful eateries in the area. “I even sat on the curb with the bums at the Balti jaam,” he said, until he was convinced there was the right customer base in the area to make a serious go of a family dining business.
“It bothered my Estonian friends that I’d open a restaurant in Kopli,” said Rawlings. “They said, ‘It’s a horrible area.’ But we’re not a place like Stereo; we’re not all white and sterile. We’re homey.”
His manifestation of homey bore little in common with a Jimmy Buffetesque romantic notion of grilling tortillas while friends and regulars looked on with Coronas in hand, though it did send all the visual signals of a western Mexican restaurant. “I want to take my corporate skills from the tech world and create a restaurant chain,” Rawlings said, noting that there are approximately 63 Subway sandwich shops in Finland, though very few signs of franchise restaurants in Tallinn.
Currently, he operates two restaurants from a single kitchen. Kokopelli, a sit-down family-style restaurant connected to the Hotel Economy, and El Torito, a more American-style, faster-food establishment where the fare is served wrapped in paper for quick consumption or take away. He has lease agreements from the City of Tallinn for two additional properties and is currently going through licensing procedures to allow him to operate kiosk-based restaurants.
Rawlings is also happy for any opportunity to discuss his Mexican pedigree. As a child in Idaho, he grew up eating Navajo and Mexican Indian food. Although, due to lack of ingredients, he hasn’t been able to exactly replicate the Navajo recipes, he has avoided the trap of most Estonian restaurants that attempt to pass themselves off as ethnic. “There’s nothing on this plate poured out of a bottle,” he noted, pointing to a plate packed full of refried beans, Mexican rice and a fresh chicken enchilada covered with homemade salsa. Rawlings buys directly from Estonian farms whenever possible, ordering his sour cream from southern Estonia and making his tortillas fresh every morning from local flour.
His biggest disappointment has been the vendor system. Although he admits to speaking no Estonian, which makes day-to-day operations uniquely challenging, he still voices disgust with the system: “I was shocked by the vendor system. I expected salespeople to storm in and want to sell me things.” The most difficult of them all, he said, was the American company Coca-Cola. “I bet I called them 20 to 30 times before I was able to get them to come out. And I’ve still been waiting three months for a retro refrigerator.”
Rawlings has kept food on the tables thanks to cash and carry wholesalers, who – “once they got over the shock of seeing an American in their stores every day” – have been very helpful. “In the US, you rarely leave the restaurant to buy goods. Here, I’m gone for two hours a day,” which takes its toll in building the franchise model if the visionary isn’t around to oversee consistency and standardization.
While setting up in Kopli meant relatively inexpensive rent, salary costs for his staff of 12 are substantial. He’s also been plagued by rising utility costs – the “elephant in the room,” as he characterized it – including a couple of accidents caused by theft of metal from the power company’s local substation. He is frustrated but not daunted: “I love challenges.”
Asked what the odds are that his business will still be operating in a year’s time, Rawlings responds with the sort of openness which can only be attributed to self-confidence from entrepreneurial experience and freedom borne of having at stake only his own capital and having to impress no one but himself: “I’d like to think my odds of success are fifty-fifty. But I probably don’t know.”
“But,” he added. “If something happens tomorrow, then I’d have no regrets.”