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The idea behind Restaurant 1163 is to help transform a barren train yard in Pasila, a central neighborhood in northern Helsinki by building a sustainable steam engine restaurant, with a giant, slightly transparent oven in the locomotive’s nose, a kitchen in its tender, and three converted carts into dining and storage units. The wider goal of the project is to contribute to an economy which recognizes transparency, green values, respect for history and craftsmanship. The project is headed by Philip Rosengren.
The primary aim for the project is not profit; it does not promise to offer a generous return for a given level of risk. It wishes to create local participation where there is none, to reignite a lost community through its clear activity, and to favor forgotten spirits undermined by years of designed neglect.
The project has been received very warmly as an idea by people in all kinds of professions: from economists, electrical engineers, and skaters to architects, hipsters, and chefs. With my own efforts and wits and the anasthetic property of that wide enthusiasm, I’ve been able to weather the high asking price by the steam engine owner, the lack of any tangible investment, and the natural entrepreneurial problem of missed opportunities and second guessing.
While I wait for events to shape accordingly to make my moves (and I am confident they will within two years), I’ve been busy creating a brand image (the naive logo sans text), forming a passionate and active tribe of interested folks, meeting with farmers in Åland, and building an oven prototype out of a cylinder sauna oven.
It is clear that this idea is not along the lines of currently trendy concepts: internet businesses, cloud computing, learning algorithms, robotics, or alternative energy. Indeed, a restaurant is one of society’s oldest business models and, in its abstraction, this project doesn’t claim any radically new way of doing business.
It still firmly requires farmers, chefs, and diners. And yet, something is different. There has been a creation; an evolution of value. I’m gratefull that Hankenes, as a society, has the minds and, more importantly, the personalities to respect that transformation.
This post is part of our ongoing series profiling founders and businesses with a connection to Hanken Entrepreneurship Society.
