A little restaurant talk
I was invited to the Grand Kapamilya Negosyo Fair, at the SMX Mall of Asia last Sunday, to be interviewed about our family’s restaurant business. So that made me go back to the start of this wonderful journey when I entered the food business three years ago.
My restaurant PenPen started out as a monetary decision. The moolah I make from acting is fast and hard. I wanted to find a complement that was slow but stable, like a plant that will die if you do not give it constant care and attention. Aside from that, I was also in control of my time. I needed something that would teach me structure and discipline.
The first idea that came to me was a restaurant. Dining out has always been a passion of mine. In business, you have to sell what you love. So I thought about starting small with a food cart business. But I remembered, hey, my mom put up a restaurant that’s only a few months old. The place wasn’t making money yet so I went in to propose some changes in the menu, overall look, and theme of the place.
We re-launched in August 2007, quickly becoming known for the great food at affordable prices. Our signature dish is the crispy liempo—pork loins cut like strips of bacon with a machine called a rotary slicer, then deep-fried to chicharon perfection. Customers would visit from places like Parañaque for our bestseller. It was a good start that encouraged my mom to start a big construction on a legitimate commissary.
But in the restaurant business, Murphy’s Law applies here especially. What can go wrong will go wrong: The old plumbing will break down to flood your kitchen. Your main circuit breaker will trip and burn itself out, rendering you out of business for two days. The touchy neighbor will complain about the karaoke singing in your function room and you find yourself summoned by the barangay council.
Also, the world will revolve regardless if you are spinning along with it. In our case, the collapse of the US stock market happened. The economic depression hit our country (a big question mark) and caused panicked consumers to hold on tight to their money. It hit mostly small and medium enterprises in its infancy like us, which left a lot of guys battling at a deficit for months on end.
But I always kept in mind the story of the global sandwich brand, Subway, which was losing money with the first outlet in their first year. It was only after making a bold move to open a second branch (to look like a success) that the customers started to take notice. This was a success story of innovation in the face of adversity. I applied it to my own restaurant, and true enough, things started to pick up again.
Starting a restaurant was a crash course and on-the-job training on how to create and maintain a successful business. It taught me the only attitude you will ever need: Hard work will always go a long way. If you focus on working hard, you will pick up other traits like discipline and perseverance, and a lot of other stuff you will naturally pick up along the way.
Like when facing a problem, you must treat it as a glitch in the business, not as a problem in your personal life. Detach yourself to see the other perspectives. Don’t think of it as the world conspiring for the destruction of all your hard work and life savings. It’s simply a natural flow of things that need to be dealt with, minus emotional turmoil. Bad stuff will always happen. Your only choice is to fix the problem.
Another important attitude you will need concerns the creative side of your brain. Customers will always want to try something new, so you have to be playful and innovative with your promos and offerings. In our case, we created Pasta All-You-Can Tuesdays, the first pasta buffet in Manila for a cheap price of P280. It went on to become a big success. So to maximize the potential, we decided to move it to Saturdays and Sundays, revamped the sauces to all Filipino (think penoy carbonara), and added whole-wheat pasta for the calorie-conscious.
Having a strong food identity is something you must establish from the start. Our original menu started out as comfort food. Eventually, we began experimenting with Pinoy ingredients like quezong puti (Filipino white cheese) and smoked fish. So we decided to shift the menu to Filipino dishes with a Filipino twist, which we are excitedly working on to be launched this October. Our hope is that every time a person craves for Pinoy food, they will think of our delectable dishes.
Trusty and reliable partners are also a must. It is simply impossible to run a restaurant alone. The newest addition in the family business came in the form of my biological sister, Japs Medina, as a graphic artist and aspiring businesswoman. She was the missing part of a currently solid trio—a complete team that could move faster and be more efficient.
The great thing about having a restaurant chain is that the business can outlast you for generations. If you can create a successful brand, it is definitely here to stay. I can only hope that my future children will decide to continue my love for serving great food. So on and so forth, passing it on to future generations.
* * *
Want to know more about the food biz? Visit me @ http://twitter.com/pingmedina
