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"Destinos con Sabor" is launched in Rivas

Faustino Salcedo | Apr 20, 2012

Program organizers, next to the restaurant owners benefited. | Photographer: Faustino Salcedo

Nine restaurants were the beneficiaries of the program and nine others may apply to the second phase.

Rivas is a department that attracts big part of the Nicaraguan Tourism, due to the shores of Lake Cocibolca and the Pacific Ocean. This makes that restaurants of different kinds exist in the zone. Nine of which will be benefited with the funding and training program "Destinos con Sabor" (Destinations with Flavor) promoted by the Nicaraguan Tourism Board (INTUR); the program was launched yesterday in the Municipality of San Juan del Sur by a press conference.

"Destinos con Sabor" has been running once a month since November 2011, in several Department of the Country. According to Nelson Porta, international chef and director of this program, “The objectives of this plan are to provide advice on quality, hygiene and organization to all restaurants, even those who have not been benefited".

To apply to the program, each restaurant must be of the two or more forks category, have adequate hygienic measures, a coherent menu, among other things. Then a commission performs the local inspection, later the selection of the restaurants that can be benefited with a loan and an own brand manual prepared by the program committee is performed.

In the case of Rivas, 18 restaurants were the inspected and only nine located in different municipalities in the department were elected, according to information provided by Nelson Porta. From the city of Rivas three restaurants were elected, from the Ometepe Island two, and from San Juan del Sur four restaurants were elected.

Zonia Coffler, owner of the Restaurante Villa Paraiso from the Ometepe Island ensures that this program will give more promotion to her place, as well as allowing improvements to provide a service focus on quality. On the other hand María Eugenia Mexicano, owner of the Vilas Rosti Pizza, stated that this program will help her to develop better deals in her place.

During the conference, it was said that the restaurants who hasn´t classified to be benefited by the program can apply to the second phase of "Destinos con Sabor", as long as they apply the recommendations provided by the commission during the evaluation. According to Karla Hammond, national promotion coordinator of INTUR, Matagalpa Department will be next, and they will continue doing the program every month, in a different destination.

Translated by Aída Pichardo