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Jakarta Post

Once a parking lot, Thamrin 10 transforms into culinary spot

New spot in town: Customers visit the Thamrin 10 food and creative park on Jl

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Thu, January 30, 2020

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Once a parking lot, Thamrin 10 transforms into culinary spot

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ew spot in town: Customers visit the Thamrin 10 food and creative park on Jl. MH Thamrin, Central Jakarta, on Jan. 24. Once a parking lot, the area has been transformed into a center of culinary delights. (JP/Yunindita Prasidya)

Surrounded by Jakarta’s skyscrapers, Thamrin 10 Food and Creative Park in Menteng district, Central Jakarta, provides the capital’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with a venue to grow their businesses, as well as a much-needed open space for its residents to socialize while trying out delicacies.

“There are already too many malls in Jakarta. I get bored. I wanted to check out the open space, as well as the food and the stalls,” said Afifah, a 23-year-old who visited Thamrin 10 with her two friends for the first time on Friday evening.

“The food is tasty and cheaper than in malls,” she said.

That evening, the dining area managed by city-owned market operator Pasar Jaya was decorated with rows of Chinese lanterns in celebration of Chinese New Year, which falls on Jan. 25. Chinese dishes are also put on sale to fit the occasion.

Among the 54 tenants and seven food trucks, beneath a row of red booth tents were chefs from Chef Republic, a community of chefs in Jakarta, cooking various Chinese dishes as part of the park’s effort to provide customers with a thematic experience every time they come to visit.

Rizal Djarot from Chef Republic told The Jakarta Post that the administration had offered an opportunity to the community after he initially wanted to open his own place at Thamrin 10. The administration asked Chef Republic to come up with different cuisines according to the theme of the month — this month being Chinese New Year and next month Valentine’s Day.

“We have selected the 40 best Chinese dishes available and we put them here,” Rizal said, as he accompanied the Post to visit each booth and showed what was on the menu that day: from fried beef noodle and spicy crispy chicken to fu yung hai (omelet) and kung pao chicken, with the star dish of the evening being the chicken char siu noodle.

“We feel very, very empowered. Because for us, we can explore our passion for food here,” Rizal said. He had invited chefs from his community, who would otherwise only work behind the scenes, to give them the stage to learn entrepreneurship, in the hope that it could be useful for their retirement plans.

Thamrin 10 was officially opened by Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan on Dec. 21, 2019, and has since opened daily, from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. on weekdays, closing an hour later on weekends. The park is built on an 8,000-square-meter area that was once a parking space called the Park and Ride Thamrin.

It was transformed into a culinary center as part of Jakarta’s attempt to develop its tourism potential. In doing so, the park management wanted to make sure the tenants fit their standards.

“We were asked to bring our products to a food test [organized by] Pasar Jaya. There were a lot of other MSMEs lining up at the scene,” said Julia, the owner of Pisang Goreng Srikaya Ahou, one of the tenants at Thamrin 10.

After passing the curating process, the tenants were invited to a technical meeting, where the administration talked about food quality, customer service and the three-month contracts that apply for all tenants, among
other things.

“The competition is tight,” Julia said, adding that there would be a routine evaluation every three months during which the tenants would be curated again, hence she would have to maintain product quality.

Muji, a business development officer of Cocomas Terrace, a coconut-based gelato brand, pointed out that the strategic location was part of the reason why the company was interested in opening an outlet at Thamrin 10.

“More people, especially those working in Central Jakarta, can try our products here because our other outlets are located on the outskirts of Jakarta,” Muji said, adding that his brand, which now has four chains, had benefited from the exposure brought by the park’s marketing efforts.

Pasar Jaya president director Arief Nasrudin told the Post on Friday that there were initially some 300 MSMEs who signed up to be listed on the property. A group of independent consultants was hired to help with the curating process, in which they judged the taste, quality, presentation and pricing of tenants’ products .

The tenants are contracted for three months under a revenue-sharing scheme, in which Pasar Jaya receives 20 percent of the profits made.

“This is one form of empowerment,” Arief said, explaining that in comparison to a rent system where tenants had to pay a fixed cost regardless of the profit, the revenue-sharing system better accommodated the purpose of Thamrin 10 as a business incubator.

Arief hopes that Thamrin 10 will become a role model for other MSMEs in Jakarta, one of the ways is to get tenants accustomed to cashless transactions.

“[They are] obliged [to go] cashless. This is part of us guiding them as well as us [fulfilling] the role of traditional markets as agents of change to a cashless society in Jakarta.” (ydp)

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