In the second of a four-part series on entrepreneurs in business who took part in Butterfield Bank’s advertising campaign, ALEX WRIGHT spoke to Holger Eiselt of Buzz Cafe fame.Holger Eiselt has grown his small business empire from just himself and his wife running one cafe to a staff of 66 operating a chain across Bermuda all in the space of eight years.The Austrian entrepreneur who owns Buzz Cafe started out his business at H2O on the upper level of Washington Mall in 2004 before changing the name and branching out across Hamilton and the surrounding areas.But it would not have been possible without the help of his bank Butterfield Bank, who provided him with loans and assistance to help expand his business.A loyal customer since launching the company, Mr Eiselt, who is originally from Klagenfurt, had always dreamed of becoming a chef and seeing the world, inspired by his uncle who was also in the hospitality trade and travelled the globe with his work.Having completed an apprenticeship programme in Austria, he worked for a couple of years in his homeland prior to moving to the Cayman Islands and then worked on cruise ships in Asia and the Mediterranean before settling in Bermuda 12 years ago.Working at the Elbow Beach Hotel, he met his wife-to-be Hayley, who was doing an internship as a management trainee having graduated in Hospitality Management from Johnson & Wales University in the US.And with the help of her mother and father the pair set up their first enterprise after Mr Eiselt’s father-in-law convinced him that he should do what he is best at and he decided to turn his back on the anti-social hours of being a hotel chef.“Having worked in the industry for 14 years, I realised that having worked only in a kitchen was only a fraction of what you have to know about running a catering business,” he said.Eventually Mrs Eiselt went off to pursue her own career as an insurance broker and she now works for RK Harrison, but Mr Eiselt continued to live his dream, opening a second cafe in Washington Mall two years later and then Buzz 2 at Hamilton Pharmacy a few months after that.Following that came the cafe at in the Chartis building, and others have sprung up in Dockyard, Brown & Co, Pitts Bay Road, Bermuda College, Tobacco Bay in St George’s and most recently in Bakery Lane where the company’s head office is also based.By his own admission, the best move he made was the appointment of his general manager Thomas Mayer, who is responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations, and the duo found that their skills have complimented each other and that they work well together in the management and growth of the business.Mr Eiselt has been true to his mandate of hiring Bermudians with 70 percent of the management and 40 percent of the other employees being locals and that number increasing every year.As an example of career development, he said that one Bermudian woman who had just come out of school started out restocking beverages at the different locations at nights joined the company’s management trainee programme and helped to manage the Tobacco Bay outlet over the summer and will now be working in the head office on the administration side.The secret to his success has been giving the customer what they want at the best possible price, but often there is a fine balancing act involved, he said.“It is about serving people what they want but even that has become challenging due to the down turn in the economy with ever rising product prices making it harder to maintain the balance between setting the right price and what the customer is willing to pay,” he said.The popular eatery manages to keep its customers coming back with a diverse menu and offering new specials on a regular basis.But it has not been without its detractors with Bermuda College students choosing to boycott the on-campus cafe for four days last week and the cafe’s managers admitting that they had been “insensitive” towards the students with their price hike which promoted the action in the first place and said they were planning a low-cost menu tailored to their needs.“For a company the main focus is always to stay profitable because if you don’t then you have to lay people off and maybe close some of your locations,” said Mr Eiselt.Traditionally a non-Bermudian line of business, over the past two years Mr Eiselt has seen an increase in the number of job applications from Bermudians as more people get laid off due to the recession and become desperate for work.In terms of expansion, he has put all plans on hold having grown rapidly over the past few years and given the current state of the economy.“What we have appreciated a lot was the fact that whenever we needed money to grow the business the bank was able to help us out,” he said.“And we found the process to be efficient, personal and quick.”