After five years of captivity, he opened a restaurant. The story of a tanker who became an entrepreneur

"Veteran-owned businesses are becoming popular, and people are ready to support them," says human rights activist and restaurateur Viktoria Pantiushenko. She knows what she's talking about: a year ago, she and her husband Bohdan opened a family restaurant, TrePoisty.

"People support us without even advertising it, without boasting about it, but simply because they feel good about it," says Viktoriia .

Her husband, Bohdan Pantiushenko, is a tanker who has been fighting since 2014. In January 2015, he was captured near Donetsk airport, where he spent five years. His survival was helped by the attitude that even in captivity he continued to fight for his idea. He kept this realization for all five years.

Bohdan does not lose heart in civilian life either. Together with his wife, they realized the idea of starting their own business and opened a restaurant. How much it cost, where they found the money, and how they came up with the concept, read in the article LIGA.net.

A hint from life

Bohdan and Viktoriia Pantiushenko from Kyiv region have long dreamed of owning their own catering establishment. At first, they planned to open a cafe, then a burger joint.

However, when they became young parents, they realized that there was an unmet need: a family-friendly restaurant with a children's corner. That's how the idea for the TrePoisty family restaurant was born. The couple opened it in July 2024 in the village of Novosilky, three kilometers from Kyiv.

Bohdan currently works as a programmer in a private clinic. Viktoriia is an advocacy manager for the protection of the rights of prisoners of war at the Media Initiative for Human Rights. She works with the families of prisoners of war, and has five years of experience working on the return of her husband from captivity. The Pantiushenko's develop their own business in their spare time.

Start-up capital, training and experience

To open the restaurant, Pantiushenko had some savings. But they realized that they would not be enough, so they started looking for other opportunities. They found a program to support veterans from the Ukrainian Veterans Fund. It took them six months to submit a grant application .

"We realized that we were incompetent in many aspects, so we consulted a lot," explains Bohdan .

According to him, he and his wife were lucky: they always met people who could explain something at the very moment when novice entrepreneurs were stuck with a lack of knowledge.

The Pantiushenko's received three million hryvnias from the veterans' fund. However, this amount was not enough for everything, so the couple contributed their own savings. In general, Bohdan says, a 120-square-meter restaurant like theirs would require about four million hryvnias. About a million of this amount was spent on kitchen equipment alone .

Additionally, he advises to have $20 thousand as a financial cushion. The restaurant business is seasonal – the highest earnings are in the warm season with good weather.

"In winter, you need to be prepared to invest more than 100,000 hryvnias a month," the entrepreneur explains, "Electricity and rent are very expensive. You also need to pay salaries and buy food," he says .

So far, the investment in TrePoisty has not paid off. One of the reasons is the location. Their restaurant is located in a new residential complex that is still under construction. This directly affects attendance.

"There is a passage near us that should have had good traffic. But it is now cut in half, because there is construction on one side," explains the veteran .

Until the alley was opened, traffic was low. Visitors come to TrePoisty on purpose, not because they saw the place on the way. So, the veteran explains, they opened for the future .

Technologies and menus: who is responsible for what

In general, the couple divided their roles in the business. Bohdan is responsible for technical issues – POS systems, QR menus, QR code payments, and technological cards. Viktoriia is mainly responsible for the menu and food procurement.

The menu items were formed by monitoring the lists of dishes in other establishments, says the restaurateur. They also asked a relative who works as a chef for advice. But they also had their own vision: for example, they wanted to have burgers, pizza, and salads .

TrePoisty's starter menu has already changed a dozen times, because not everything is popular with visitors, says Bohdan. However, there are dishes that must be on the menu, even though they are not very marginal. For example, salmon steak.

The area of food supply was also a new area for the family. At first, says Viktoriia, they were given a few supplier contacts. Later, word of mouth started to spread, and the suppliers themselves began to contact restaurateurs .

"Usually, you can ask suppliers for a taste test," says Viktoriia. "You test the products in the kitchen, see if they suit your taste and quality, and then order them.".

Learning on the go: from operations to strategy

Currently, the Pantiushenko's are still searching for their own specialty and market positioning. Bohdan admits that they need additional knowledge. To do this, he enrolled in a business development course.

"I'm finally starting to see where we have to go, how to develop, because during the whole time of this operation there was no time to look up," says Bohdan .

The Pantiushenko's continue to work on the development of their institution. They admit that it is very difficult to do this while having a full-time job and a small child. Therefore, they both add the most important piece of advice to theirs: you have to really love what you do, and it has to drive you and give you energy to move forward.

"If you don't know whether you want to open a restaurant or not, then don't do it. Do something else, because now I don't own the business, but the business owns me," the entrepreneur concludes.

The media product is produced by LIGA.net with Askold and Dir Fund as a part of the the Strong Civil Society of Ukraine – a Driver towards Reforms and Democracy project, implemented by ISAR Ednannia, funded by Norway and Sweden. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of LIGA.net and can in no way be taken to reflect the views the Government of Norway, the Government of Sweden and ISAR Ednannia.