– Lakshman Jayasinghe, ‘Lucky Café’ Hotel and Retail Store, Molagoda, Kegalle.
As we pass Molagoda in Kegalle along the Colombo Kandy Road, it is hard to miss ‘Lucky Café Hotel sitting on the left side of the road adjoining a grocery store. The throngs of customers who regularly patronised the institution are testament to the high quality and insatiable taste of the food served here. On this particular day, as we stood in front of grocery store, our plan was to wait till the large flurry of eager customers in front of the hotel thinned out, in order to seek out an opportunity to speak to the gentleman behind the cashier, Mr. Jayasinghe. However, since there seemed to be no visible end to the number of customers fighting for his attention, we were left with the only choice of speaking to him as he was attending to his duties at the register. Here, Mr. Jayasinghe recounts his arduous but rewarding journey of bringing Lucky Cafe to life;
“I started Lucky Café as a very small tea shop about ten years ago, but after running the shop for a few years I wanted to expand it and streamline its operations. It was while I was brewing this idea in my head that I heard about HNB FINANCE through a friend of mine, who highly recommended this institution for its quick, reliable and trusted loan scheme. After doing my due diligence, I thought I’d visit the nearest branch to meet the officers there. This was six years ago. The way they took time to understand my needs and my business gave me the confidence I needed to trust HNB FINANCE with my plans. That first loan was the starting point of a fruitful and stable partnership, and the only financial partner I rely on today.
“As a result, my small tea shop grew and evolved to the size of shop and hotel it is today. The several loans I obtained from HNB FINANCE helped me not only realize my entrepreneurial dreams but my personal ones as well. I need to make a particular mention of the home I am living in right now. My life started in a very small house but with the assistance of HNB FINANCE I was able to build a new, comfortable two-storey home for my family.
“For extremely busy businessmen like us, dealing with HNB FINANCE is also very convenient as their pro-active loan officers make it easy for us to pay our installments on time by coming to us every month, saving us a lot of time and effort, which we could then utilize to support our business. Therefore, I have no hesitation in recommending HNB FINANCE as a trusted, reliable financial partner.”
The evening ended with Mr. Jayasinghe taking us to his new family home that has been constructed behind Lucky Cafe, which is today an iconic establishment birthed out with perseverance, courage and most importantly smart financial planning.
