The Raum Bar Owner| Migena Lace
It is a chill Monday evening at Raum Bar. Migena Lace is staying behind the bar counter. She is moving around putting the drinks and cleaned glasses in the right place. At the same time she greets some of the clients that just entered Raum Bar. Now she goes to the computer at the corner of the bar to check if the orders are placed correctly. From time to time she takes a look at her phone, to check for new messages from her clients.
“I am the first one to come at the bar and the last one that leaves from it. I usually come here at 11 a.m. to get the supplies for the day and after that I design and post the poster for the event of the day on our social media,” says Migena.
The 26-years-old woman from Tirana, the capital of Albania, seems to operate everything in the bar. Currently she is the owner and manager of Raum Bar Tirana, but lately she has been spending a lot of time behind the bar preparing cocktails and other drinks ordered by the clients.
“Now I do almost everything myself,” says Migena. “I spent most of my time behind the bar counter, while trying to take care of the staff, orders and the financials of Raum at the same time,” she continues. Migena says that she also gets a lot of help from the guys that work with her, as the staff is very supportive.
What she does now is unrelated to what she studied for. “I did my undergraduate studies for Law and I have never worked in that field. Straight after graduation I got the chance to buy Raum together with my brother and fiancé and I went for it, since Raum was the place that I shared a lot of good memories and it had a special place in my heart,” shares Migena.
It has been four years now and she says that it hasn’t been easy to make Raum the place it is today. “At the time we bought Raum, it had reached a point where it was unknown to people, so I had to start from zero without knowing anything about how to operate it. I learned everything myself while working here. In such a short time we managed to grow Raum to what it is today, a place preferred by youngsters and foreigners as well. We reached that by organizing special events that were not done by other bars or clubs in the area. Events like the Greek Night and the La Casa de Papel theme party,” she explains.
According to her, clients are what make the bar lively. “I try to make the bar as fun as possible at all times, and I do that to satisfy our clients. In a way I do everything for them. When they have special requests I try to accomplish them, whether it is about the music, an event that they want or a special drink,” she says.
Due to the pandemic, the situation at the bar hasn’t been the same. Migena says that it affected them by 90 percent, economically and function wise. Now they work with limited hours, until 8 p.m., while before they would work until 5 a.m. and sometimes even until 7 a.m.
Despite the difficult situation she remains optimistic about the future. “I have a strong character and whenever I faced a difficulty, I managed to solve it. I am pretty sure that the same will happen with the current situation and together with the staff we will bring Raum back, working at full capacity,” says Migena.
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Anxhelo Mani is studying for Business Administration, Marketing and Journalism at the American University in Bulgaria. From this story he learned that if you love what you do you can always succeed.
