Restaurant Review: Make Dardanel Your NEXT Night Out!
This blog post was written by Jeff Park, co-chair of the Microfinance Council of ACCION USA. His blog was inspired by a monthly group dinner at microfinance clients restaurants in New York City. Please join us for our next dinner at Arepas Cafe on July 25th at 7:00 p.m.
hand paintings at Dardanel
New York is unrivaled when it comes to the diverse selection of superb food outings and eateries. No other area in the United States dares packs as many crafted restaurants of iron caliber in one dense footage as Manhattan. This is all the more why we often forget that each individual restaurant tells a story. On an unassuming corner of 58th street and 1st avenue, Dardanel may at first appear to be one of the many Midtown restaurants that serve small tapas style portions of unbelievably delicious Mediterranean fare. Yet what the food or decor does not tell, the spirit of the hardworking staff does.
The ACCION USA Microfinance Council and friends arrived for a group outing. The restaurant is tastefully decorated true to the Mediterranean senses of a breezy summer’s wind. There is a fresh fish display at the front that immediately draws you in, and inside is a time portal that shuns the outside world of hackneyed modernity. With string music and murals that extend a panoramic scene of Bodrum, Dardanel showcases what seldom money alone can accomplish: a sense of belonging in a story to be told, a neighborhood experience to be shared.
Besides the great selection of Turkish wines, the newest region of trendy vinoculture, the fish are selected and directly from the Mediterranean. Ranging from Branzini to Dorado, grilled to fried, every palate is covered in their generous and customizable selections. This is no surprise, for Eddie is a seasoned restaurant entrepreneur. He, like many others, have learned from his past mistakes to build a sustainable positive cashflow business model in his life calling to share his hometown Turkish delicacies. Food and beverage ventures often face trouble finding financing from conventional lenders because their business is innately risky. When Eddie was refused several times from major commercial banks , he turned towards ACCION USA for help. Because ACCION USA is a non-profit microlender that works one-on-one with each client, giving many aspirers like Eddie a chance in his aspiring business, his dream was bolstered.
Eddie shares with us his past successes and failures and then his undying vision to expand his franchise. He shares his strategic and tactical concerns over the dining party, from the width of the restaurant foyer, to the size of his restaurant entrance’s ability to sync more eye contact. As the Council discussed our upcoming events and volunteer projects to be managed, it was heart warming to know that our work is directly benefiting people like Eddie and many more. At the end of the night, we asked Eddie about how he attained the colorful panoramic landscape painting that spans the restaurant, which is difficult to explain unless you visit the restaurant yourself. He shared with us that his local entrepreneur friend, who is also an aspiring painter, was commissioned to depict something that he and only his friend could have known of from back home.
It is often difficult to think about supply-side economics when the notion of capital is not nearly as sizable as the Federal Bank’s balance sheets, but in my heart I was glad to see the impact one loan extends beyond the traditional scope of scalability that I have statically assumed before. I walked away from the night, confirming the true impact that microfinance makes in the United States, especially in an unlikely Manhattan, and knew that it was not only my responsibility but my privilege to continue giving back.
Tags: accion usa. accion, microfinance
Look No Further… Volunteers Bring Microfinance Books to Your Fingertips
This blog post and its content are brought to you by the Microfinance Council of New York.
Bookstore at the Microfinance USA Conference
A huge pat on the back to all of the Microfinance Council volunteers who contributed to the Microfinance Annotated Bibliography, which was launched at the Microfinance USA Conference in May! The Bibliography compiles summaries of over 30 articles and books about domestic and international microfinance. It serves as a free resource for anyone who wants to simplify their approach to research or reading about microfinance. The Council thanks its dedicated volunteers and the Public Policy Committee– this project is on-going and anyone interested in contributing can reach out to the Chair of the Public Policy Committee to learn how to be involved (please see the website for contact information: www.accionusa.org/microfinancecouncil).
The bibliography can be found at the Microfinance USA Website (www.microfinanceusaconference.org/bookstore/) and the ACCION USA Microfinance Council site (http://www.accionusa.org/Uploads/FileManager/mfusa-bibliography.pdf)