During the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation , veteran entrepreneur Andriy Sarvira opened a volunteer headquarters on the territory of his exquisite First Wave restaurant in Dnipro.
In the first days of the war, the institution fed hot lunches to soldiers, internally displaced persons, and policemen. Half a thousand people ate there every day.
In 2014, Andriy was actively volunteering. In 2015, he volunteered for the 81st separate airborne assault brigade. In fact, it was the fourth wave of mobilization. They performed combat tasks in Popasnaya, Vodyanyi and other hot areas.
In 2016 he demobilized in the rank of junior sergeant, and then he decided to engage in entrepreneurship. Andriy opened the Veterano Pizza restaurant in Dnipro.
Things were going well; at one point, the restaurant was visited by the state’s first persons, who didn’t hold back from giving it rave reviews. In 2018, they moved to the center of the city, increasing the space of the restaurant and the number of visitors increased as well.
Later, Andrii stopped working under the Veterano brand, opening his own restaurant – First Wave, and a brewery by the same name.
“Why First Wave”? It seemed very apt to me then. Because it is like the first wave of mobilization. The landing of the first wave of the main forces during the Allied operation in Normandy also went by this name – The First Wave. And because we were the first wave of brewers who started making craft beer,” Andriy explains the name of the restaurant.
With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, this restaurant of Ukrainian-European cuisine was closed and worked exclusively as a volunteer headquarters to provide hot lunches to the displaced, the military and the police. Every day, the team fed about 500 people.
“I expected an invasion and knew that it would happen – not in previous years, but in 2022. There were all signs that it was going to happen, unlike any previous year. It was enough to listen carefully to what Russian officials and their other politicians were saying, they gave clear dates for a full-scale invasion. Zhirynovsky, for example, named one. After February 24, I left for three months to visit my friends in the east with, shall we say, a volunteer mission. I evacuated the family and launched a volunteer headquarters in the restaurant without hesitation,” says Andrii.
The establishment has recently reopened as a restaurant, but after its absence from the market due to the war, sales declined drastically.
“We counted the losses – it is quite a large sum of money. Especially including rent and utilities,” he says succinctly.
The veteran applied for the “VARTO” competition program of the Ukrainian Veteran Foundation. First Wave was one of the winners of the contest and will receive 860,000 hryvnas for development. In particular, they plan to purchase the new, more appropriate equipment.
“Our chance to keep the company afloat and to keep on developing is to attract a new wave of visitors, which we plan to engage with the help of entertainment and information events – concerts, exhibitions, lectures, and poetry evenings. We did it before, but thanks to the Ukrainian Veteran Foundation, we will organize them even more effectively,” emphasizes Andriy.
And he states: “So far, the restaurant has not returned to the pre-war number of visitors.”
But we at the Ukrainian Veteran Foundation believe, expect and know that a new wave of visitors will come to First Wave.
Clients will come, lending a helping hand to the veteran entrepreneur. Just as he, having given up profit, offered his helping hand to those who needed it in the first days of the war.
