Learning from Repentant Drug Convicts, Now Earns IDR 15 Billion per Year

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Ali Elreda's story is an example of how ex-convicts develop new steps after being released from prison. Instead of committing crimes, Elreda focuses on building a profit of IDR 15 billion per year.

What's the story?

The story begins in 2009. Elreda was detained by a United States (US) court because he was proven to be distributing cocaine. He was forced to spend 6 years behind bars and a halfway house for 4 years.

During his detention, Elreda is known to have learned to cook. He consciously pursued the culinary world and became a chef in the prison kitchen. From here, Elreda's cooking skills emerged and slowly started to get thumbs up.

Unfortunately, his cooking skills don't make it easy to get a job. The title of criminal is still attached, thus making people afraid. Luckily, his cousin who owned a meat stall was willing to accept him as a chef.

In the report CNBC Make It, during his time as a chef, Elreda carried out many food experiments. He makes a lot of Mediterranean and Mexican food. It was while carrying out this experiment that visitors began to be interested in buying food made by Elreda.

Slowly, visitors came not to buy meat, but just to buy food. To the point that they came in droves until they filled the entire kiosk. This situation then made him move to a bigger place and officially name his shop Fatima's Grill in 2016.

When you are in a new place, there are more and more visitors. The power of social media made his restaurant go viral. As a result, he claimed that many visitors from various cities came all the way to the restaurant after seeing the delicious food on social media.

“People are willing to drive from Las Vegas, Chino Hills and San Fernando. These are people making 45-minute to hour drives, which is amazing,” Elreda said.

In fact, it was so busy that visitors were willing to queue for hours until they snaked their way out of the restaurant. Since then, he dared to decide to develop Fatima's Grill. In 2018, he succeeded in opening Fatima's Grill in several cities in the United States, one of which was Detroit.

Now, this restaurant owned by a former prisoner has 1.4 million followers on TikTok and Instagram. Then, Elreda so far has 6 new branches established in California, New York and Texas. Later, he will establish new branches in Atlanta, Cleveland and Canada in 2024.

Elreda herself did not want to mention her total income. It's just that he said that every month he gets money from royalties and franchise fees. Of course, that income makes him live well. However, according to the documents reviewed CNBC Make Itall of his successful restaurants have revenues of US$ 1.1 million or Rp. 15 billion per year.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(mfa/sef)