From Banker to Sate Vendor: Indonesian Man Conquers Zurich

The Most Prestigious Newspaper in Switzerland Gave a Satay Vendor a Full Page

Rio Vamory, Indonesian
Satay vendor 

A former banker from Padang Panjang left his Zurich finance job to sell satay on the street. NZZ gave him a full page. The story of courage and smoke.

A man from Padang Panjang, Indonesia, left his career as a banker to chase his dream: selling satay on a street corner in Zurich. 

In the city center of Zurich, the capital of world finance, something unusual was happening on the sidewalk. Among the high-rise luxury banking buildings, executives in fancy suits, expensive watches, and thousand-dollar jewelry stores... they smelled something different in the air. Smoke from Arang. 

The aroma of chicken satay filled the street. And who brought it, set it up, and pushed the three-wheeled _gerobak_ to make that smoke? He is Rio Vamory, 34, from Padang Panjang, West Sumatera. A former banker at one of Zurich’s most famous banks. Now a satay vendor. 

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the oldest and most prestigious newspaper in Switzerland—the reading reference for politics and financial elites in Europe for centuries—gave Rio one full page. For a newspaper like NZZ to cover a satay vendor is serious acknowledgment. 

Facade Swiss National
Bank branch Zurich

"Not many, almost no bankers change their profession to become chicken satay vendors. And this brave man did it,” said an NZZ editor. 

But how did a banker in Zurich end up selling satay?

Rio was born in Padang Panjang in 1983. His life was not simple. His mother, Rosmindah, moved to Switzerland after marrying a Swiss citizen of Tibetan descent. 

As a child, Rio lived in a small Islamic boarding school, a _pesantren_, in Bogor. Years later, his mother missed him too much. In 2006, when Rio was 25, he was brought to Switzerland. 

He went to college. After graduating, he worked in banking — the “bright path” to success for most people. He earned more than enough for a comfortable life in Zurich. He could afford everything. 

But there was one thing he couldn’t find at his office desk. “I was not happy working in the bank.” Simple words. Huge consequences. He didn’t quit impulsively. He planned for years. Even as a student, he wrote his thesis about food trucks. 

Long before he left the office, he prepared capital, ran crowdfunding, studied public selling regulations, perfected the menu, and figured out how to deliver _real_ Indonesian taste to a city that had never known it. 

"If I were nekad, of course not. I had planned it for years,” he said. 

NZZ Office

In May 2017, he started selling chicken satay on the streets of Zurich using a classic Indonesian three-wheeled _gerobak_. Not in a restaurant. Not in an AC building. Outside, like a vendor in his hometown. 

The smoke from burning _arang_, the bamboo skewers, the peanut sauce, and the sweet soy sauce—he brought all of it from Indonesia to the heart of Europe. 

His first customers weren’t Indonesian. They were bankers in ties, lawyers, and executives from multinational companies. Curious about the strange, delicious smoky smell on their city streets. They stood and queued for lunch, ignoring smoke on their formal clothes, enjoying skewer after skewer of chicken satay they’d never found anywhere else in the city. 

The story spread. Indonesia’s Tourism Minister praised him publicly. And NZZ gave him one full page. 

Even with popularity and public attention, Rio never forgot where he came from. From every Swiss franc he earned, he set aside part to donate to forest sustainability in Sumatera. Every skewer of satay he sold, part of it flowed back to the land he was born in. 

Why satay?

It's not easy to bring to Europe. Not like _Nasi Goreng_ that you can cook in a closed pot in an apartment. Not like _rendang, which is easy to reheat. Satay needs _arang_. It needs smoke billowing up. It needs skewers burned one by one in front of buyers. No shortcuts. Just like his decision to execute his dream. 

Zurich got satay. NZZ got a one-page story. And Indonesia got living proof that a traditional taste from Padang can cross boundaries — even through the cold wind of Europe.