Already a household name in Solo, Chilli Pari began from Gibran’s idea to complete his parents’ business of renting an event space, Graha Saba Buana. The medium-sized property, which can accommodate up to 2,000 people, used to be rented out for various events including meetings and weddings, but had no in-house catering to complete the service.

Gibran, then only 22 years of age, followed his own passion and built the catering business from the ground up. Without the support of his parents who wanted him to continue the family’s furniture business, Gibran applied for loans from several banks where almost all of his applications were turned down. One bank gave him a chance, and approved only a small part of his application.

(Read also: From the screens to the stomach: social media in the culinary world)

After establishing Chilli Pari in 2010, Gibran’s dream was finally starting to come together, and he eventually managed to include catering as one of the services offered by Graha Saba Buana. “The primary reason why I created a catering business was because my parents owned a meeting hall that didn’t provide catering of its own, whereas when people marry, their biggest spending is on consumption or catering,” Gibran told The Jakarta Post.

“We started from small events. We didn’t handle big events such as weddings with thousands of guests, but we began with meetings, coffee breaks. These small events consist of 100 to 200 guests. We eventually progressed into handling bigger events with thousands of guests,” he continued.

Although very technology-savvy in terms of marketing his other business, Markobar, Gibran takes a totally different approach in marketing Chilli Pari. “We don’t market Chilli Pari online as much because most of the customers are senior citizens in their fifties or older. They are not that updated in (terms of) social media, so we still use offline methods like brochures, test-foods, food samples, things like that,” he explained.

(Read also: The six best places to try modern 'martabak' in Jakarta)

Compared to Markobar which does almost 80 percent of its marketing online, Chilli Pari is the opposite, with only 20 percent of its marketing carried out online.  Gibran dismissed the fact that his status as the President’s son had played a part in Chilli Pari’s popularity.

“Let [people] comment whatever they want. In my opinion, my customers are already smart enough. They come to Chilli Pari, to Markobar because of the food and service. Not because the ‘son of the President’ title, or anything like that,” he said, “It’s impossible for people to spend hundreds of millions of rupiah for a catering service just because they want the name of ‘the son of President’.  I don’t think there’s anyone who is like that.”

Being very careful of nepotism allegations in Solo, at the beginning of the business, Gibran would not receive any orders from the mayor’s office. He said, “[I did that] so both parties would be comfortable. At that time, my father was serving as the mayor so it was so both parties would be comfortable and so that there would be no conflict of interest. However now they can order, it’s alright.”

The young entrepreneur has also shared his internet-savvy approach in marketing his other F&B business, Markobar. Read all about it in our long-form piece: From the screens to the stomach: social media in the culinary world. 

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