Botanikka Wine Bar and Kitchen founder, Margaret Adenike Balogun, has a history of turning concepts into businesses. She shares more on her penchant for creating instagrammable spaces and taking up opportunities when they emerge.
Very early in her life, Margaret Adenike Balogun was told by her parents that she was so much like her grandfather, wh0 made his money through entrepreneurship.
The comparison first began when she was in primary school and she decided to make her own coconut candy, which she sold to friends at school. When Balogun attended university in South Africa, she started making wigs/weaves for her friends to earn extra money and during her vacation trips back to Nigeria, she would buy high-end clothes from South Africa. Balogun would then sell them to her friends, who could not easily access these clothes in Nigeria.
“That is when my entrepreneurial journey started,” says Balogun.
Though her mother hoped she would follow in her footsteps as a civil engineer, once she was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, she knew there was no going back.
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While she studied software engineering in South Africa, she worked as the head of events for an international company. She was responsible for building the events department from the ground up.
“I realized that I was bringing in all the business based on my relationship with people. Somewhere along the line, I lost that job. I had gotten three big contracts for the end of the year and, all of a sudden, I [received] my dismissal letter, so it was a shock to me. I was so devastated,” says Balogun.
“I went back to all the people that had given me business and asked them if they would put it in my events company, which I had registered, and they said yes. Luckily enough, they swapped the contracts to my business – that is when my events career took off.”
This was in 2011 and the contracts she secured at the time were worth $50,000.
“That is when I realized that I want to be successful. I delivered everything for the event, and said to myself, ‘I can make a lot of money from this’, but I didn’t have a clue how I was going to do it,” recalls Balogun.
With her events business, Diamondink Luxury Events, up-and-running, Balogun decided to do a course in entrepreneurial management at the Lagos Business School and with that, things became a little clearer. Every step she has taken since has been strategic.
As a start, Balogun decided she would offer her clients a one-stop solution for events.
“I realized with events comes the decoration aspect. I didn’t want to outsource any aspect of the event management process to any other vendor. I went to China and bought goods and props for events and set up an office in Lekki (a city in Nigeria) where people could come and rent [décor],” she says.
“Then I thought of the floral aspect, and I decided to go to school in America for six months to study floristry because every event needs flowers. By the time I came back, I knew so much about fresh flowers, and I could apply fresh flowers into faux flowers as well.”
With that new skillset, her business, The Billionaire Florist, was born.
To promote it, Balogun created a pop-up shop on Valentine’s Day, where people could purchase fresh flower boxes. That strategic move into the floristry sector demonstrated Balogun’s penchant for spotting opportunities in unlikely places.
The African floral industry has grown significantly over the years. Dominated by the Kenyan Floriculture Market which is estimated at $1.09 billion in 2024, the horticulture sector is the third-largest foreign exchange earner, according to the Kenya Flower Council.
The value of flowers is still a largely untapped market in Nigeria.
Balogun then had a ‘eureka’ moment to merge flowers and food.
“I realized, at the time, that I ate out almost every single day. I had a small space in front of my office, and wanted to create a small space for myself to have pastries and tea with my friends. My biggest supporter, who was my business coach at the time, said ‘let me coach you on this plan’. So, we did the business plan, and it became more elaborate than I planned. She advised we take a bigger space. I wanted to display my floristry and I wanted it to be very pretty,” says Balogun.
After a month of planning, The TeaRoom was born.
“We created a brand identity around the entire brand which had a slogan that says: ‘Eat, Drink, Tea’, and ‘The TeaRoom, a beauteaful place’.”
“On opening day, it was filled to capacity, and we were overwhelmed. It was so busy. We were having queues for the first time in my life. Our opening month, we had over 10,000 followers on Instagram and the whole world was talking about this place. We got featured by ESSENCE Magazine in New York as one of the top seven international brunch spots in the world,” says Balogun.
And just like that, she became a pioneer of instagrammable spaces in Lagos.
The TeaRoom, which opened in December 2018, reportedly racked up revenue of over N120 million (approximately $72,000) in its first quarter of operations and, by that time, had already broken even on its capital investment. In year one, the establishment brought in an annual revenue of N240 million or around $144,000.
“The TeaRoom is really beautiful and, as a content creator, it is one of the most instagrammable locations in Lagos. From taking pictures with the Beetle car to the floral décor inside, the TeaRoom really pioneered beautiful unique spaces for food in Nigeria,” says Vera Frank, a content creator in Lagos.
As the TeaRoom grew, Balogun decided to open a more premium and upscale version of it, Café de Flore, during Covid, and it also became a viral hit. This was followed quickly with another instagrammable location, Mykonos On The Roof, an ode to the Greek island.
“In terms of ambience, this was one of the chicest cafés you could find in Lagos. Everything from their décor was popping. If you were looking for an instagrammable location in Lagos, this was the place to be,” says Sisi Yemmie, a blogger and YouTuber in Lagos.
However, the rapid pace of growth soon began to take a toll on Balogun.
“I was overwhelmed and managing it was crazy. We had major staffing issues and pilfering was rampant. During Covid we had the highest inflow of customers. People were stealing and I couldn’t manage it because I had to handle three restaurants all by myself. Along the line, I fell pregnant so I couldn’t keep up. I fell into a post-partum breakdown. I was burned out and I couldn’t do it. So, I threw in the towel and decided to focus on my child, and took a break for a year,” says Balogun.
She was done with restaurants. Or, at least that is what she told herself.
“I wanted to be a consultant and design beautiful spaces for people and help them set up their bar and restaurant, but I didn’t want to own a restaurant again. I felt like it had been so overwhelming for me for the past five years. I wanted to be there for my child,” says Balogun.
But ever the entrepreneur, Balogun soon became restless again and saw another opportunity. She raised over N225 million ($146,700) to convert one of her properties in the highbrow area of Ikoyi into a boutique apartment and, to cater to the residents, her latest creation was born – Botanikka Lagos, a kitchen and wine bar.
“Botanikka had been ready since December 2023, but I couldn’t open it because I was thinking to myself, ‘Can I be the same TeaRoom owner and do I have this drive to push Botanikka the way I did the TeaRoom?’” says Balogun.
The answer was yes.
Botanikka opened to notable praise and has the potential to be just as successful as her previous creations, but this time, she is more than equipped to ensure she stays on top of things by introducing the right systems and structures.
A rebranding and reopening of the TeaRoom is also reportedly in the works, with the possibility of opening up an international branch as well.
“Our Instagram page is still active with about 35,000 followers and over 3,000 DMs requesting to book [the] TeaRoom,” Balogun says.
The events business is currently still open and running but more focused on kids’ events. According to Balogun, the business’ clients “have included Aliko Dangote and Daisy Danjuma”.
As she continues to break barriers, Balogun hopes to steadily live up to her grandfather’s reputation… one distinctive concept at a time.
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