Richard Yap finds time for restaurant business

MANILA, Philippines — Joining showbiz and being an actor was not something that Richard Yap planned about. Neither was he interested in acting from the start. He was already 44 when he joined showbiz, already with a family, happily married and with two children.

However, things took a different and major turn in Richard’s life 12 years ago. He surprised everyone when he achieved success as a late-bloomer actor in his acting debut in the TV series, My Binondo Girl, with Kim Chiu and Xian Lim.

“I think people like the real me,” Richard said. “As much as possible, when I’m acting, I don’t want to over-act. I don’t want big actions when I act out a scene. In real life, I do those things. You should have the same attack when you act.

“Especially in theater, you over-act. When they do TV, that’s what they also do. For me, I want to make it as natural as possible.”

Richard is flanked by fellow Wangfu owners Lester Pimentel Ong (left) and Ace Wang Yan Bin during their SM Sucat branch opening. The actor handles the company’s leasing and marketing.

After doing My Binondo Girl, Richard was still tentative whether or not he would continue his showbiz venture.

“I was still having second thoughts so I needed to ask around,” he said. “But directors like Jeffrey Jeturian was saying, ‘One of these days, you have to make a choice. It’s either you go full time into showbiz or not.’

He continued, “I was thinking that at my age, not a lot of people make it into showbiz. Some of the young ones disappear after a while. They don’t last long in the business. I joined showbiz quite late and I had no experience. It will take me a lot of time to catch up with all the veteran actors and actresses.”

“I asked those who were around me if they think I have a future in showbiz. But they told me to be patient. Even after one or two years, I still couldn’t take all the attention. When somebody asks for a picture taken with me, I still get ill-at-ease. Before, no one asked for a picture with me. But I learned how to embrace showbiz.”

That was perhaps the difference when viewers saw Richard in the late-morning soap series, Be Careful With My Heart, opposite Jodi Sta. Maria.

“Viewers got to relate to my character in Be Careful With My Heart,” Richard shared. “When they saw my role in that series that lasted nearly two years.”

The actor currently stars with Jodi as an estranged couple in the GMA 7-ABS-CBN co-production Unbreak My Heart.

Aside from acting, Richard embarked on another business when he joined Wangfu Chinese Restaurant as one of its investors, with The Iron Heart director Lester Pimentel Ong and Singaporean action director Ace Wang Yan Bin. Richard was also managing the family’s furniture business.

When the second branch of Wangfu was inaugurated in Timog Avenue, Quezon City, Richard was invited to cut the ribbon. At that time, he was asked to join as an investor. The first branch of Wangfu opened at Il Terrazo in Tomas Morato, also in Quezon City.

“We already had 10 branches, but because of the pandemic, we had to close down two,” Richard allowed. “One of them was in Ayala Malls the 30th in Ortigas Center and the other one was in Glorietta. We recently opened another one at SM Sucat. So the branches are now nine.”

At present, Wangfu has branches only in Metro Manila and all the stores are company-owned with no franchises.

“We have limited manpower to take care of operations outside Metro Manila,” Richard said. “We want to keep it store-owned, as of now, because we want to keep the quality the same for all our branches through our commissary.

“If we open outside Manila, we have to open another commissary. That’s a lot of capital and manpower. The quality of our kind of food is difficult to keep up if you have different people handling it. So it’s better that everything is company-owned so we can monitor all the branches.”

Since Richard doesn’t handle operations, he doesn’t visit all the branches. He deals with leasing and handles marketing.

In 2005, even before he joined showbiz, Richard took up basic culinary course at the ISCAHM (International School of Culinary Arts and Hotel Management). “But I found out later that cooking was not really for me,” he admitted.

“Cooking takes a lot of time and preparation is hard. If you do it all by yourself, preparation takes three to four hours. We were taught the hotel-type of cooking. Appetizer, salad, soup, main course, dessert. It’s so tiring.

“When I was young, I used to cook at home,” Richard added. “My mom cooks very well. Me and my sister, we often got hungry at night. So, I had a little background in cooking. I really love food.”

Richard first took up pre-med, Medical Technology, for two years. “Then, I stopped because my father wanted me to move to Business Management. He wanted me to go into business,” he said.

“I took up two terms of Business Management at La Salle (DLSU – De La Salle University), but then, I stopped again because I wanted to go back to Medicine. So I applied at UST (University of Sto. Tomas). But I was being asked to go back to first-year college. So I decided to just finish my Business Management course at La Salle.”

Richard tried dipping his hat into politics when he ran for congressman in Cebu in the 2022 elections, but he didn’t make it. He wanted to address health care for the elderly.

“Maybe politics is not for me right now,” he admitted. “Although there are people who are still offering. Since I was not fortunate enough, we’ll do it some other way, to help the elderly.

Cebu is where Richard was born and raised. “I still have a condominium unit there,” he said. “I still go home to Cebu because my brother is still there.”