Foodpanda, the on-demand food delivery service in the Philippines, asked three of its top restaurants partners about their secrets to success.
Frankie’s New York Buffalo Wings, the popular chicken-wing joint-stop in the Philippines, started in 2012. The owners wanted people to have a unique experience centered around buffalo wings and saw the potential in this untapped market. “We wanted to build a better, all-around experience centered around Buffalo wings,” said company president Eduardo Firmalo.
While brainstorming the name of Frankie’s, they googled the history of buffalo wings and discovered that it originated from American-Italian couple—Frank and Teressa Belissimo who started selling buffalo wings in Buffalo, New York City. “So we decided to go with Frankie’s as it sounded very much Italian-American.”
Frankie’s is now a staple for those who love chicken wings, before getting to this point, they had to face hurdles along the way. “Struggles will always be present in any business, most especially when you are a startup. Because we were a startup, we had to build all our system, forms, processes from scratch. To this day our processes are still evolving and not only that; managing people is also tricky. So I would say the biggest challenges that a startup business will face are managing people and creating an effective and reliable system with limited resources,” said Firmalo.
“The best advice we can give is for people to center their restaurant or concept around a proven, timeless product, and then innovate the manner in which it can be marketed to the guests,” he said.
Frankie’s New York Buffalo Wings’ long-term goal is to expand to all major markets in Metro Manila and eventually areas outside the Metro. They want to continue improving their processes and keep on innovating.
Meanwhile, Hummus Elijah, the healthy Mediterranean restaurant, started in the owner’s home kitchen in 2015. Before this, Eli Lapid used to cook for his friends and family and it wasn’t until he was prompted by his loved ones that he turned it into a proper business.
The restaurant name was derived from the combined names of the owner’s favorite food, hummus, and his name.”Hummus is my favorite food in the world ever since I was very young and Elijah is my first name so I just combined the two,” said owner Eli Lapid.
“The biggest struggle aside from the financial investment was maintaining the consistency of the dishes at the beginning and teaching the staff how to provide the best service in the world,” he said, referring to the struggles they needed to deal with while running the business.
As every experience is a lesson learned, Lapid gave a piece of advice to those who aspire to run their own restaurants someday, “Try to do something special that only you can do and can do it the best. Leave a personal signature in your food that people will recognize in every bite.”
In the future, Hummus Elijah is aiming to be known nationwide.
The third restaurant is 101 Hawker Food House, which was started in 2010 by Chef Rexmond Chua. The owner used to work for Singapore’s Grand Hyatt kitchen.
“I was a chef for different companies before starting out on my own. The inspiration to opening 101 Hawker Food House the time I spent working in Singapore’s Grand Hyatt where I would usually work overtime at their buffet restaurant, Straits Kitchen,” said Chua.
The restaurant’s name was inspired by the address of the first branch, 101 Urban Ave., Makati. Starting 101 Hawker Food House wasn’t a breeze for Chef Chua. “I started with very little marketing because most of our investment went to construction and setting up the restaurant,” he said.
Despite the difficulties in running 101 Hawker Food House, Chef Chua shared some useful advice to those who are having a hard time running their own restaurants, “Look for another venture if your heart is not 100 percent committed to the restaurant. That means long hours, losing sleep, missing out on gatherings and special occasion, etc. It is easy to get burned out in this field.”
101 Hawker Food House aims to stay in the business for more years to come.
Foodpanda said it is proud to team up with all of its successful restaurants such as Frankie’s New York Buffalo Wings, Hummus Elijah and 101 Hawker Food House.