The saying goes: "choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life", but the 26-year old Col'Cacchio love story is a much greater romantic affair than that.
Kinga Baranowska, the brain behind the Col'Cacchio (pronounced Kolcakio) menu, admits that her love for food has tied her to places and people, kept her breathing through tough times, and has provided a creative outlet for when she is working long hours. "Food and cooking have saved me in so many ways, and taught me so much," she says.
Her passion was moulded by working in her grandmother's ice-cream shop in Poland as a child and enjoying her Polish mother's wholesome traditional cooking while growing up in Europe, Australia, and finally South Africa. "One of the things I'm proudest of is how popular my creations have become," she says.
It was while working at an Italian restaurant in Johannesburg back in 1991 that Kinga cultivated her dream of opening her own eatery. "I was going to open a restaurant in Miami," she says, "as my best friend just moved there".
When regular patron Michael Terespolsky suggested a similar, yet joint venture in Cape Town, Kinga's dream quickly became a reality, albeit literally in a different direction.
Says Kinga: "I didn't even know him that well. My parents thought I was crazy – but I said yes."
"The next thing I knew we were building a pizzeria on the Foreshore. Pizza is what I knew, and there was no such gourmet offering available in Cape Town at the time," she says. Michael and Kinga opened their doors a year later on her 21st birthday.
It was a dream come true, and the birth of a bond that evolved into a partnership that stretched way beyond the walls of the business. The duo's personalities and skills were so well suited and complementary that working together added not only richness to the relationship but romance as well. The starry-eyed entrepreneurs were married not long after they realised their mutual appreciation for gourmet dining.
"Spouses come to respect and admire each other in new ways," notes Kinga. "When it works, it is a beautiful thing. I couldn't imagine building my life's dream with anyone else."
"Working together provides spouses with an opportunity to see their significant other do something they're good at and passionate about," says Kinga's husband and CEO of Col'Cacchio Michael Terespolsky.
"We saw each other through the trenches, and had to support each through the best and toughest times. At the very beginning, we had to be the policymakers, the cooks, the staff trainers and the waiters. We had to learn on our feet," he says.
It would be 12 years before Michael and Kinga would start franchising, and by that time, the power couple knew exactly what they we were doing.
Forward a quarter of century, Michael and Kinga, along with partner Greg Mommsen, have grown Col'Cacchio into a household franchise family across Southern Africa.
Greg (with his wife Roz) opened the first franchised Col'Cacchio store in Bryanston. Similar to their Capetonian counterparts they had to manage the staff, cook the food, and often double as waiters to save up their tips and keep the place going.
Indeed, couples who go into business together must do so with care.
