BY JOY OFASIA
BRENDA Kikolo, Floor Manager for Lunch Food at the Sol2023 Pacific Games Main Dining Hall and Kitchen, shares her experiences with daily encounters, reactions, and delicious food served to visiting athletes over the past week.
Brenda works for the local catering service provider, Fairyland (Jinas) Restaurant, which is the official master caterer for the Sol2023 Pacific Games. Brenda acknowledged that she is honored to be a part of this year’s prestigious regional sporting event in Honiara.
“The opportunity to support my team in delivering and managing all menu and catering services during the lunch hour period at the Athlete Main Dining Hall [KGVI Sixth] for the Sol2023 Pacific Games is an amazing privilege, as is the supervisory role I hold.
She told RAW SPORTS, “As a result, I am really happy and proud that the Fairyland management team has welcomed me and trusted me with the role of floor manager.”
Brenda said that the goals of Fairyland Restaurant are to provide food, support, and care to everyone we serve, as well as to create delicious food that inspires memorable experiences for all of our visiting athletes.
“This is the first time I’ve had to handle the daily load of feeding 5,000 athletes and their officials, and it’s not an easy or simple task.
“Lunch is served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and 57 waitresses work very hard to prepare each lunch meal every day.
“It is not an easy task to serve daily lunch meals to thousands of athletes and officials from 24 countries across the Oceania region, as the food must not only taste delicious but also be appropriate for an athlete’s diet and meet international safety and health standards,” she said.
Over 400 workers have been hired by Fairyland Restaurant to be a part of the team for the current Games.
“In total, 206 waiters and waitresses work at the Sol2023 Pacific Games Main Dining Hall and Kitchen,” she said.
Brenda shared one of her funny work-related moments.
“I had a great experience serving a long queue of around 4000 athletes and their team managers, and they complimented the food and service provided by our team by saying, “Since we arrived, your team has been looking after us and making sure we were not hungry.”
“I joked back about the fact that while they are playing sports outside, we are also doing sports back in the kitchen by running around behind the scenes with the trays to make sure they are fed on time,” Brenda laughed.
The floor manager expressed her gratitude to the management of Fairyland Restaurant for their confidence in her to lead her team in delivering the necessary services to the visiting athletes for the current games.
“The knowledge and experience gained working in this field of work will also help us when wanting to engage in small businesses in the future,” Brenda said.
She said her team will definitely miss the friendly interaction and presence of the visiting athletes after the closing of the Pacific Games.
“To all the participating sporting contingents, we are so grateful to have you. Despite our different language barriers, we were able to communicate well each day by building relationships through interpreters.
Brenda remarked, “We could feel like we were just getting to know them in a matter of minutes, and before long they would be leaving us too, and we will miss them all.”
