GROUP 4: An Interview to Mr. Taveesaek Bhuttavong, Vice-President of the Blue Elephant on Restaurant Business
Interviewer: What has led you to start the Blue Elephant?
Mr. Taveesaek Bhuttavong: I’d like to tell you the story how the group started. Initially we started with the three Thai partners and one European who is our chairman today.
Interviewer: I’d like to know the idea of the Blue Elephant, why do you select the Thai food, why not Japanese or Chinese, why Thai food?
Mr. Taveesaek Bhuttavong: We all agreed that Thai food was the best choice because we could offer a variety of the food and the tastes that could attract different groups of people – I mean international customers.
Interviewer: So your target groups are foreigners and Thais?
Mr. Taveesaek Bhuttavong: Yes. That’s why we started in Brussels, Belgium in 1980 with the small restaurant. It was only forty capacities. One year later, we expanded to 120 to 130 capacities. It was widely accepted.
Interviewer: What is the key to your successful development?
Mr. Taveesaek Bhuttavong: We stick to our concept. Our concept is…, we have three factors, ambience, food and services, all three have to come together. Like you’ve seen here in the Blue Elephant London, when you stepped in, you are not in London but you are in Thailand.
Interviewer: What about the taste of the food?
Mr. Taveesaek Bhuttavong: We serve authentic Thai food. Many people think that Blue Elephant is not really Thai but in fact it’s a Thai. It doesn’t mean you have to throw down the spicy because spicy is not Thai food. For example, you can make Tom Yum Kung more or less spicy, at the end of the day, it’s the Tom Yum Kung. The same as the chicken green curry, whether it’s more or less spicy, in fact, it’s the green curry.