(Courtesy of Lucy Wiryono)

Lucy Wiryono's face has long been recognized as a sports presenter. However, today her name has begun to shine in the restaurant business as the woman behind the success of one of the capital's most famous steakhouses.

With no experience in running a business before, Lucy, 35, and her husband, Afit Dwi Purwanto, made up their minds to materialize their dream of setting up a restaurant. In 2010, they opened their first restaurant, Holycow! Steakhouse, in Senopati, South Jakarta.

'Afit loves cooking very much, and he always wanted to run a restaurant. So when he resigned from his job at a TV station and decided to open one, I supported him by directly taking part in managing it,' she said.

The idea of running a business with her lifetime partner always fascinated her because she knew somehow that it would make the family bond stronger.

'It's fun and never boring. Our talk revolves around the things we love most ' family and the food business. But we also have rules to separate business from domestic matters,' she said.

Lucy said they did everything all by themselves in the beginning of their business; Afit was mostly in charge of kitchen issues, while Lucy dealt with marketing matters.

She said as Holycow!'s concept was to give people a chance to enjoy wagyu steak at an affordable price, it needed a good marketing strategy to introduce the idea. And to do so, Lucy was the one who exploited social media to spread the message.  

'Honestly, we had zero budget for marketing, so I used Twitter. We started to promote Holycow! before we opened the restaurant, and it worked!' said the holder of a degree in marketing from Atmajaya Catholic University.

Lucy also said at the beginning of the journey, they did a lot of research about other successful entrepreneurs, looking at their strategies, steps and working ethos in doing business, which could be followed.

'We learned a lot from them; not only the success stories, but also the failures, so we wouldn't be too carried away with the dreams we've had,' she said.  

In two years, the business grew well, and everything seemed to go on track. But then Lucy and Afit was faced by the reality that they could not get along with their partners in managing the restaurants anymore and had to part with them.

The separation made the business more challenging ' a heavier workload, she said. Afit was not only responsible for the kitchen, but also for operational things. While Lucy, who usually did the marketing from home, had to go out to the restaurants and help Afit.

'We were busier than ever, but that's the consequence and we were ready. In addition, 80 percent of the employees chose to stick with us, and that's what kept us strong and decided to reorganize Holycow!,' she said.

To start afresh, the couple decided to change the name of the restaurant a bit, from Holycow! to Holycow! Steakhouse by chef Afit.

'The change is important, so the customers can differentiate [between those under her management],' Lucy said.

They survived, the business got stronger and the couple also got busier, looking for ways to maintain the business, she said.

Today, Lucy and Afit have three steakhouses ' in Senopati, in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, and in Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta ' and a lobster restaurant, Loobie Lobsters and Shrimps, in Gunawarman, South Jakarta.

'We once thought that when the business was doing well, then we could just relax and enjoy the results ' but we were wrong. Both of us are still directly involved in the business, even more intensely than before,' she said.

She added that they hoped to spread their wings to open a non-food and beverage business in the future.

The path Lucy has taken in the business world may not be that long, but she says she has learned a lot from the journey and taken it as lessons in life.

'I have learnt to be more observant of people because in business it is helpful if we thoroughly observe someone's character ' not paranoid, just being cautious,' Lucy said.

In addition, she said, she had learned the real meaning of trust and commitment in running the business.

'Trust is the highest currency. I don't want to misuse the trust that has been given to me because I know it wouldn't be easy to get that trust back if I broke it,' Lucy said.

In between her time running the restaurants, she still regularly features as the host of a MotoGP show on a local TV station and is a speaker at many entrepreneur forums. But the biggest portion of her time is spent taking care of her two daughters, 6-year-old Danya and 8-year-old Dahayu.

And just like the parents, Lucy says the girls are also food lovers. She said she intentionally introduced her oldest daughter to many kinds of food so she got used to various types of spices and tastes.

'Our family loves to eat and our hobby is to search for good food, even if it's located at the very edge of the city. I'm always curious about the story behind good food,' said the fan of MotoGP riders Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez.

Lucy says she still has a lot of targets in life that she wants to meet. But unlike in her 20s where she became so ambitious to reach the targets she forgot to enjoy her achievements, now she has decided to slow it down a little bit.

'At my age now, I try not to set too many targets and ambitiously achieve them. I just do my best at whatever I am doing,' she said.

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