Nollywood star, Emeka Enyiocha is an actor that has made his mark in the entertainment industry.

But guess where you’d find him; inside a bar where he is the resident barman. In case you have doubts whether his new status is another starring role or for real, he has no qualms telling you the honest truth; “I am a barman”

If you hang around for sometime, you are likely to see a confirmation of this as he’d roll up his sleeves and gets down to the gritty business of producing fresh fruit juices-water melon, orange and pineapple-and serving the well-heeled customers that patronise his bar.

In a recent encounter with him at the bar in Surulere, he said, “it is a matter of detaching my real self from my occupational self. I am first of all Emeka Enyiocha before the name you want to give me, the star or the celebrity. Just as you are wondering, others are also asking the same question: is it true that Emeka is doing this? I don’t know the picture I paint out there; but the truth is I love doing this.

“ The first day I did it here, produced a fruit juice, it was like a joke. I was exhausted. By the second day, customers were asking for it. I used to do it without adding anything but now, I have also introduced ginger into it.

Apart from that, nothing else is added to the juice. I also drink it; so I serve what I love and I take great care in ensuring that I produce the juices in a hygienic environment,” he disclosed. This led to more questions.

His type of bar
My bar is like a family bar. I try to make it a home away from home. This is where I started from, but after about three months, I had to refurnish the place so that it will have a more homely ambience.

The idea to run a bar
Originally, I had it in mind to float a clothing line. I still have that in mind and working towards it. The bar came when I realised that the kind of business we desired to do always run into millions of naira, most often, in the next four months or so, nothing of financial significance comes up, and you keep waiting for the money while the project remain unexecuted. Close to my office on Modupe Johnson Street, off Adeniran Ogunsanya, Surulere, Lagos there used to be a bar; the person running the bar decided to move to a bigger complex and the place suddenly became vacant.

The tide of change
In the little time that I have been running this bar and have been closer to the public, I have discovered that life is different from where I am coming from; from the status of an actor or celebrity, that has everything and everyone at your beck and call. You can imagine, coming from that level and coming down to actually serve people.

In fact, some people come here only for me to serve them. I do that with all pleasure because I am in business. Once I am here, as far as I am concerned, this is not a celebrity thing anymore.

With this new insight, I have learnt to appreciate people. Like in the bar now, people of all sorts, walk in now and then and say “can I have a bottle of wine”? Sometimes ago, a girl walked into the bar and said, “I just came for you to serve me”, I told her “with all pleasure”