Japanese fine dining café stirs up a unique concept

CEBU, Philippines – Despite the slowdown on consumer spending due to the global economic crisis, a Japanese high-end fine dining café pushed through with the opening of its first outlet at the Terraces in the Ayala Center Cebu.

UCC Café Terrace president Hubert Young said that with the uniqueness of their brand, they do not directly compete with existing coffee shops in the industry as they have their own niche market.

“We are not your usual coffee shop because we are a fine dining café and we serve Japanese style dishes but we are also not the Japanese restaurant you will think of because we have Filipinized some of our menu,” said Young.

He said that their concept is similar to a coffee shop in hotels because they aim to capture a niche market composed of corporate executives and entrepreneurs and be a venue for meetings, making deals, gatherings and tea time.

Young is an officer of the Specialty Coffee Association of the Philippines and a seasoned restaurateur.

He brought the UCC brand in the Philippines in the year 2000 through putting up various concept stores such as the Café Terrace, Vienna Café and Park Café located nationwide in some of the country’s finest malls and commercial establishments.

UCC Café Terrace is the 18th concept store of UCC (Ueshima Coffee Company) in the Philippines.

The Ueshima Coffee Company is a popular Japanese coffee company that is involved from growing coffee beans to manufacturing different types of coffee blends and products and has coffee plantations in different areas of the world which include South America.

Young said that another unique feature of their brand is that they serve siphon-filtered coffee which is not practiced by other coffee shops that usually utilize espresso machines

“For people who look for more value of their money, UCC Café Terrace is the place to be. We are much cheaper than hotels and our price is fairly competitive with other coffee shops,” said Young.

He said that since location is very important for a high-end concept like UCC Café, they see the Terraces in Ayala as a good venue for UCC to start their penetration of Cebu’s growing consumer market.

“The development here at the Ayala Terraces matched the concept of UCC Café Terrace so we entertained the idea of investing in the area.—Rhia de Pablo