When Stephen Mumuni retired from the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in 2006, he wasn’t quite ready to exit the hospitality industry. The former director of banquet operations wanted to put his 30 years of experience in food service to use.
He and the hotel’s executive banquet chef, Amy Mansaray Kondeh, had long toyed with the idea of going into business together. The pair felt there was a dearth of catering companies offering rich and savory cuisine from the African diaspora. They figured they had worked enough events to understand the business and strike out on their own. And they did just that in 2008, launching Tropical Fusion Caterers.
Three years later the company has grown from Mansaray Kondeh’s kitchen to a 3,600-square-foot commercial kitchen in Rockville. Tropical Fusion plans to host a private tasting Thursday in Silver Spring to celebrate this milestone with local politicians, event planners and many of the clients who helped build the company into a $200,000-a-year business.
“When you look at the metropolitan area, there are so many ethnic restaurants. The people in this area, their palates are very sophisticated,” Mumuni said. “But when you go to a catered function you get bland, rubbery chicken.”
Both Mansaray Kondeh, with parents from Mali and Sierra Leone, and Mumuni, who grew up in Nigeria, share a passion for West African cuisine. Mumuni said the chef draws from a melange of West African, Southeast Asian and Caribbean flavors in her cooking.
Clients can select from a wide range of dishes such as Cameroonian suya, sopa de frijoles, oxtail soup or wonton wrapped shrimp.
The chef’s culinary style has won Tropical Fusion catering contracts with the Embassy of Barbados and the African Union as well as from actors Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte.
As the company took on more private events and corporate parties, some elbow room was needed. Mumuni started scouring the market for space and happened upon an empty warehouse in Rockville last fall. The company reconfigured it to fit a kitchen and office space for its five employees.
Mumuni and Mansaray decide to forgo bank loans and pooled their savings. He pulled a childhood friend in on the deal and together the partners redeveloped the space for $750,000. “It’s a big investment, but we believe in the company,” Mumuni said. “We can focus on the business without the pressure of repaying a loan.”
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