Tequila mockingbird

They say the early bird gets the worm. But for club owner and restaurateur Erik Cua, getting up early is not necessarily the most realistic option. “I wake up at noon everyday,” the 28-year-old business management graduate from La Salle quipped adding, “I’m always rushing to get to my first meeting at 1 p.m. in which case I’m always late.” What would you expect from a guy whose work transpires towards the bewitching hour and thrusts him into the “bright lights, big city” of Manila’s much talked about and effervescent night scene?

With a total of six branches of Jack’s Loft all over the metro, Club Basement, Temple Bar, Embassies Café, Super Club, and Members-Only, and a recently opened boutique hotel in Boracay called The Tides, the word “impossible” seems largely divorced from Erik’s impressive entrepreneurial vocabulary. Whether it’s a dining or partying experience, Erik related, “I’m always trying to improve the standards of going out to the country.” Whereas his earlier business ventures were based on gut feel, nowadays, his business strategies have become more scientific. “I try to make myself the target market,” he shared, adding that there are still so many ideas he’d like to try out and accomplish during his career.

Born to Mariano and Nancy Ong, owners of the very first Harrison Plaza in the country and the successful Pho Hoa Vietnamese restaurant line, it’s quite apparent that a strong business savvy is not entirely foreign to this self-styled “concept specialist.” Erik, whose first brainchild was a quaint, little coffee shop in Rizal called the Cainta Coffee Company, shares that at that time, he wasn’t really into going out. He clocked in about 12 hours a day and served as the on-site store manager. His specialty? A white chocolate mocha that his friends never got around to enjoy. “Cainta was just too far. But after that, I became more of the CEO-type, calling the shots.” In 2004, Erik bade goodbye to the coffee shop, the eldest gem in his multi-million-peso empire and has since moved on to monumental heights as a bona fide proprietor of today’s flourishing night scene.  

Since his collaboration with Tim Yap for the acclaimed Temple Bar in Greenbelt 3, Erik has been dubbed the Louie Ysmael, or “Louie Y,” of his generation. The latter was known as the perennial night owl of the ‘70s – a man whose career has spanned three decades of being the ultimate party host and putting up successful nightclubs like Stargazer, Euphoria, Le Jardin, Circuit, and Coco Banana. When asked about playing “Prince” to Louie’s “King” of the Night Scene, he asserted, “Honestly, if I did accept that title, I would feel humongous pressure. But unlike Louie when he started, I have a cutoff age for doing this, probably by 35.”

Erik’s success is not necessarily your typical rags-to-riches telenovela. At the tender age of five, his family decided to move to Canada after his father’s branch of Harrison Plaza had just burned down. Subsequently, he spent the next seven years of his life in Vancouver, taking up his elementary education and being the only one in school with a yaya. “I was a bit spoiled and sheltered back then,” he confessed, adding, “But fortunately, I had a really good childhood.” With the unbridled support of his parents while growing up and even as he entered into business, Erik made it a point to involve himself with his mother’s restaurants during his college years. “My parents and Louie Y are the people I look up to the most when it comes to business,” he added.

In the dog-eat-dog bar and restaurant industry however, success stories like Erik’s go hand-in-hand with judgment and controversy. “In the Philippines,” Erik related, “there’s a big social aspect to going out.” One might say that painting the town red hardly seems fair in light of rising prices and the nation’s adversities. Most Filipinos thrive on controversy and have made a past time out of rumor-mongering and the concept of schadenfraude, or “happiness at the misfortune of others.” On whether scandals regarding people he knows affect him or not, Erik said, “Of course, especially if I know it’s not true, and I see them suffering for it. Siyempre, they’re my friends.”

While Embassy has weathered its own share of controversies and forced closures, having recently reopened under a newly imposed curfew by the city of Taguig and tighter security measures, Erik has managed to keep his composure and maintain a clean image in light of the controversies surrounding his establishments and nocturnal contemporaries. “I think I’m really lucky because of the way I was brought up. It’s really in my personality to be under the radar,” he admitted, “It’s like my introversion helps me indirectly.”

When asked if he considers himself a celebrity, Erik gently shakes his head, as the self-confessed movie junkie also manages to hold on to some of the more simple things in life. “I really enjoy attending family gatherings and watching DVDs at home,” he said. “Like if people have fun when they go out and make pakawala, I have fun watching comedies with my friends where I’d be cracking up on the floor over the tiniest jokes. I’m mababaw that way.”

With over 10 business establishments under his heavyweight entrepreneurial belt, what more can a guy like Erik ask for? Well, he says he wants to put up a small luxury hotel in Manila within the next three years. Down the line at 35, he also sees himself as having a family and reveling in an industry that is less volatile — something that will enable him to have a more private life. With Erik’s strong business acumen and astuteness for the vibe of his generation, a posh, new hotel is likely to rise on Manila’s soil. But as per tomorrow’s set of business meetings, perhaps the early bird doesn’t always get the worm. After all, it may just end up in last night’s tequila.

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