A socially-driven startup stands out among coffee shops that litter busy streets across the country for its strong sense of patriotism and social responsibility.
Sari Café, a coffee shop and diner owned by entrepreneur Vanna Gonzalez-Rodriguez and her husband AJ, is the first cafe to open in Dasmariñas City.
Using what remained from their wedding fund and chipping in a bit from their savings, the couple who were social volunteers at Ateneo de Manila University during their college days, decided to establish the cafe near the city plaza, a busy corner where government offices meld with businesses and the church.
What really pushed the budding entrepreneurs to create the perfect coffee shop in the city was the lack of a decent cafe within the area.
“In all 30 years I spent in my father’s hometown, there wasn’t a single coffee shop in the city center. There were fastfood [outlets] but not one coffee shop where we could enjoy good coffee. We love coffee as much as we love traveling in the Philippines. We want to promote Filipino products,” Vanna says.
Sari Cafe which was put up in October 2017 quickly earned the patronage and love of Dasmariños and those who have heard about the cafe either by word of mouth or from a television interview that featured the cafe.
With P600,000 in initial capital outlay, the couple transformed an abandoned building into a thriving cafe-cum-diner-store located along the main road.
To cut costs and preserve the environment, all furnishings were upcycled like the reupholstered seats and stools, tables and counters. The interiors exude festivities with a splash of a variety of colors and adorned with banderitas.
Social enterprise
On its wall shelves sit a variety of homegrown products, which Sari Cafe proudly endorses. It gives opportunities to backyard industries to gain recognition and following by showcasing the products on a special nook within the store. There are more than 10 backyard products that the store promotes, mostly crafted by women, especially mothers.
As a social enterprise, Sari Cafe does not charge a single centavo on products on display, an opportunity given to MSMEs and backyard industries for creating well-crafted products.
“As the name suggests, Sari Cafe is short for ‘sariling atin’. We use and promote products that are proudly Philippine made. I believe that these products are our pride as a nation. We have strong conviction for our homegrown products. It does not matter whether their MSMEs or backyard, we believe in the quality of their products,” says Vannah.
She says these social enterprise products don’t compromise quality. Many of SKUs brought in by the micro-entrepreneurs are also being used by the cafe as ingredients of a dish in the menu.
For the serving of brewed coffee, Sari Cafe uses Basilio Coffee, a product of social enterprise Bote Central.
There are four kinds of coffee sold from the shelves, among them Likha Ni Inay and Cafe Amadeo’s Pahimis Blend, one of the best-selling coffee blends in the Philippines.
Other homegrown products on the shelves are Tsaalaya, a lemon ginger tea concoction; tablea or cacao chocolate from Alfonso; chili flakes from Dasmariñas; and Uraro biscuits from Marinduque.
Cafe menu
On top of brewed coffee, Sari Cafe’s most loved beverage is its selection of milk teas, all carrying local flavors like mango graham and ube quezo.
It serves Filipino food-inspired pizza. Longganiza pizza is an all-time favorite alongside Angus beef tapa pizza. Non-meat pizza are also served for vegetarians and vegans.
Rice meals are available any time of the day with choices ranging from boneless bangus to other popular meals. The cafe also serves pasta which has won the hearts of adults and millennials.
“We realized that there’s a following for local flavors. This made us even more enthusiastic to create more menu using local ingredients. Just to let you know, we already have thought of and had been selling the mango graham milk tea even before it became a local hit,” Vanna says.
For special occasions, the cafe offers special pastries such as bibingka cheesecake and ube cheesecake during Christmas. It serves vegetarian fares like supery cheesy pizza during Lent.
Sari Cafe has teamed up with neighborhood and home-based bakers for its pastry and bread requirements. It is another means to uplift the baking industry and support small bakery businesses.
Expansion plan
In a span of three years, the cafe has expanded with a satellite store near De La Salle University also in Dasmariñas.
Vanna says that she and her husband felt it is time to build more satellite stores within Cavite and go outside the province first, before bringing the brand to different Filipino communities in foreign countries.
“This is the reason why we joined the Next Generation contest of the Association of Filipino Franchisers Inc. We’re hoping that our business, our idea was good enough to create interest in our brand. Now that we’re starting to equip ourselves with the technical know-how of franchising, it will be easier for us to expand across the country,” she says.
Sari Cafe won second place at the NextGen contest which raised hopes for the couple to work doubly harder to improve their brand.
The winnings and earnings from the three-year operation will be used to build more company-owned satellite stores while the brand rolls out its franchising plan.
“Most of what we need and what we use are sourced all over Cavite. We dream that in the succeeding years, our advocacy store will spread all over the Philippines, so we can also make use of the native, raw ingredients each locality has to offer,” says Vanna.