Episode show notes
Sri Lankan food culture brings people together and always lays a space at the table, and that family feel channels into The Coconut Tree’s 9 fantastic locations.
Rashintha Rodrigo’s emotional connection with the business has evolved over its 9 years in rather an interesting way – we catch up with him on It Runs In The Family about the chain’s success, and charming ambitions.
This episode covers:
- The strength gained from having multiple Co-Founders
- Their ‘lay an extra spot at the table’ ethos funnelling into the business
- How The Coconut Tree expanded their reach to 9 restaurants in 7 years
- An evolving emotional connection with the business over time
Episode highlights
“The best thing is to try and understand everyone’s capacity. So my capacity might be up here, and then someone else might be even higher. Since we know each other so well, and we know what capacity we can work on, that has helped us.” – 3:20 – Rashintha Rodrigo
“One of the reasons we’ve survived is because we were doing different things. But then also one of the reasons we clashed is because we all want the best for the business.” – 11:50 – Rashintha Rodrigo
“We started the whole thing to be Sri Lankan, so we try to have at least a few Sri Lankans in every site, to keep that culture going forward.” – 19:40 – Rashintha Rodrigo
“That was one of the times the whole family/friend element was at its peak because we all just got together. It was just about survival and looking after our staff, most of them are friends and family so you can’t let them down.” – 24:35 – Rashintha Rodrigo
“When we were younger we took more risks and were willing to do radical changes. Now, we have to think 100 times if we even take something out of the menu.” – 33:45 – Rashintha Rodrigo
“Understand your team’s strengths and weaknesses – a few times that’s helped us massively.” – 41:25 – Rashintha Rodrigo