Expand, expand, grow your business. This is typically what “business experts” tell small business owners. You have to expand, you have to grow your business.
Our kitchen, serving 32 plus people, was situated in our Burkei home, which was not ideal but served for 13 years. Here, the cooks, together with the catering manager, thought up menus with perfect dishes for our residents. Thousands of sandwiches were made in that kitchen, and so many pots of wonderful dishes came from that kitchen. But it became time to expand and take the kitchen out of the house. This meant a whole new building.
In January 2024, Esmarie started working on a plan for the new building. She argued that while we are going to the expense of building a new kitchen, we also need a new laundry and a proper staff room. As she usually does, she marked out the grounds next to the generator room and realised that the old garage storage needs to go. She built the whole building first with Lego blocks, and then from that, proper plans were drawn.
In March 2024, David was contracted to build. Down came the garden storage. The first part built was the whole foundation for the structure, and then the staff toilet was built in total with lovely finishes, ready to be used.
This whole building was finished in January 2025. It also included a small area where the DB box was installed, a water purification system and the DB Box and batteries for a solar system.
Solar panels were set up on the roof of the building, and batteries and brand new kitchen equipment were installed, except for the big gas stove and oven and the massive extractor fan that were transferred from the old kitchen in Burkei. When the oven was moved, we suddenly realised that it was too big to go through the door. Esmarie just wanted to break down the door, but our Gift saw another way out. He had David take out the big window on the East side, and with the help of our garden and maintenance teams, the oven was lifted through the window.
Our kitchen staff are very happy and proud of their new kitchen and now can bake delicious cakes and tarts and cater for birthdays. They now bake lovely buttery biscuits with sprinkles and others with chocolate chips for our residents’ tea, saving Resthill from buying store-made biscuits.
The staff is delighted to use their new staff room and they have their little fridge, a microwave oven, a kettle and a radio. Walking into the staff room during tea or lunch hour, you will find a happy atmosphere every time. This was one of the best additions made at Resthill.
The laundry is also a happy place. The ladies working the laundry now have ample space to move, space to iron and in summer, it has a lovely draft through the building and in winter, they can close the windows, and the tumble dryer is causing a mild heat through the room.
On the 4th of April 2025, the building was officially opened by Prof Albert Viljoen. A number of our residents’ families attended the grand occasion, and the ladies in the kitchen were hanging out with delicious eats for the guests. Acknowledgements were given to the building team, the team of gardeners and all the staff who were involved with the planning, erecting and furnishing of the finished building.
This is a great addition to Resthill Memory Care. The next step? Maybe expand the dining areas in the houses, build on new rooms for 10 more beds? More accessible front gate for our resident families? Who knows what the future holds?
Thankyou Aletta, for the excellent summary of our big achievement.