Hi, We are Mery and Ivan, the creators and owners of THE LAST CALL, 

    Many people every day ask us about how is possible to find 2 Italians in Fiji to set up such a different place like ours. We always try to tell the story to everyone, but it for many reasons was never complete or was very short so we decided to tell all the "truth" on this page. Actually our story is long and crazy so maybe we'll write a book about it (ah ah) ; anyway we'll really appreciate your comments please ... 

    Everything begun on February 1996 in Italy where I (Ivan) was a soldier for the Italian Army and Mery was the owner of a hair dresser salon. You may don't know that the Military service in Italy is 1 year long and every 18 years old boy must take part to it, so that was month #6 for me; another 6 to go and then free again. I was already planning to open a Net-disco pub in the north of Italy with the help of my family, BUT right during that month my family (due to many reasons like the Italian incredible politics and the stress life) decided to wait till my service to finish and leave the country to move here in FIJI (they've already been 4 times in Fiji on a couple of resorts on the Yasawas). 

    Before the service I was a 3D/CAD designer (ex IBM) and was going very well but after one year of "Yess Sir!" I was now with no too much jobs to do, so after receipt the "happy news" I found the courage to explain the situation to Mery enphatizing the fact that "Or we move together, or we don't move at all ! ". It wasn't so easy but we took the decision to leave and try a new life, you can say we was mad but this is the the risky side of the game. 

    The idea was to come in Fiji and open an high class resort on Waya Island; we've already had all the plans, contacts, everything was almost done, but after we got all the documents approved from the FTIB, a "mad minister" ask us lots of money for his pocket money otherwise no approval to start to built (then people says : Italians = Mafia ...). Anyway we wasn't absolutely agree with this idea of paying any minister in Fiji so my father (that is not stupid) decided to stay in Fiji anyway and open the same business he was doing in Italy just to wait for another minister to came. 

    So my father and Alex (my young bro) opened up the GPS Fiji (a joinery and engineering company) meanwhile me and Mery was looking around to find out an idea for a good business in Fiji . After 4 months we noticed that there was no place in Lautoka to enjoy the time with your friends (like a cafe) in front of the sea so we decided to start the planning for THE LAST CALL. 

    We wanted something different so we started from zero designing and building the place by ourselves. First we found a quite good building on the sea front but it was a diesel garage. We worked a lot and all by ourselves; I made the designs of the forniture and the inside with an Italian Architect (Gian Paolo Zauli, thanks for the collaboration), Merj looked after the menu. My mum helped a lot organizing with her experience and my father made all the great fornitures. When all was almost ready we went to Australia to buy all the needed machinery like the coffee machine or the ice cream machine and once back we started to give a philosophy to our new business : a non-alcoholic cafe' for the safety of the families and the youth; this 'cause to the common thinking in Fiji that Fijians + alcohol bring always big problems but we wasn't so right. The name ( THE LAST CALL ) come from the idea of a train that is going to leave and if you don't hurry up you will loose the possibility to catch it! 

    We opened on the 1st of March 1997 with a successful ceremony and the first week  successful. But life is always funny, in fact the 5th of March, hurricane Gavin had the great idea to pass and have a look the our new place; after two days we had 35 cm of water inside. As soon as we reopened we established the proverb : if you want to eat Italian, this is the only place. 

    It was working fine, i was on the bar, Mery was our Chef and my mum was supervising but like in all the family business the things started to go mad soon. The people of Lautoka re different from the people in Europe, if they don't have the alcohol they was not coming, then you can imagine how the business went down a little bit. So me and Mery had different idea from my mum's so after one year of up and down and crazy fighting we arrived at the point that me and Mery are the only directors of THE LAST CALL. 

    We are still young but not young enough to don't understand our initial mistakes so we started to bring the alcohol in our place, improve the menu and start the Internet Cafe side. Finally it went great and the name became strong enough to be considered one of the best place in Fiji... if not THE best. 

    About Merj and me : We are living fine, under my family, planning to rent a flat and start finally to live together by ourselves. We still hardly understand the Fijian and Indian culture and way of life but we know that for us this is the other side of the world.