Beats & Stats Sports Bar in Quezon City, established three years ago, has garnered a loyal following because of its outstanding service, great music, amiable crowd, tasty food and a wide selection of drinks.
Located at the ground floor of Haven Building along Congressional Avenue Extension, the bar was born out of the passion of three friends for music, beer and sports.
The goal of Rolando ‘Olan’ Dimaano, Adolfo ‘Ady’ Parayno and Jaime ‘Jimmy’ Comia’s is simple—make customers happy by giving them great music videos, ice cold beer, great sports shows and delicious food.
“Just driven by passion of friends with similar interests: sports, music and beer. That’s the main reason why we put up this bar. We really don’t have experience in managing or handling a restaurant or bar—it was just born out of passion,” says Comia.
The friends wanted a place where people can have a good time, especially after working hard the whole day. Customers can enjoy watching high definition sports games from the bar’s 18 video monitors.
The friends also invested in a good sound system powered by JBL/Harman for the music enjoyment of their customers. The bar comes with modern fixtures and cozy interiors while there is spacious and guarded parking area outside for the customers.
“It’s simply just on my bucket list. Any ordinary guy like me who likes having a good time, partying, being with friends and drinking—almost all of those types of guys have a dream like mine. For me, this is a lifelong dream and this is the only time that it has become a reality. I’m really happy I was able to realize that dream,” says Comia.
Comia manages the bar today, after working for almost 23 years at 3M Philippines and getting an early retirement in 2016.
For Dimaano, he considers the bar as his “happy” side business while he works hard as a civil engineer in the construction industry for over 30 years to date. “I have my own company. That’s my primary business. This [bar] is my ‘happy’ side-business,” he says.
The friends have another partner whom they call Dr. Macky, a transplant surgeon at the National Kidney Institute.
Initially, the group found it challenging to run a bar because of their lack of experience. Later on, the challenge shifted to how to bring in the customers.
“For starters, we have no experience in running a restaurant or a bar, so that’s one of our many challenges. But probably what we consider our main challenge is how to get customers to come to our bar for the first time. The way we see it is once they come here, we’re pretty sure they’ll be back again. So that was our biggest challenge: how do we get them to try our bar. There are also challenges operations-wise, definitely. We’re learning as we go along,” Dimaano says.
Despite the challenges, the bar owners are optimistic that customers will continue to flock in the bar whose name was derived from the combination of music and sports statistics, thus Beats & Stats.
They believe the bar has found its own niche market not only because of the food and drinks but also because of the ambiance and music.
“The combination of sports and music, that’s our edge, also our food and beers,” says Comia.
“We have great music videos, we air exciting sports shows, we serve very cold beers, we have great food and drinks. We also make sure that we maintain the pleasant, cozy, and clean ambiance,” Dimaano says.
The friends ask customers to visit the bar and check out the ambience. “I want to emphasize our bar’s ambiance. Personally, I don’t see this kind of ambience in a lot of bars, even in Metro Manila. It’s mesmerizing—almost like you’re blinded by the video monitors. The profile of our customers also makes you feel safe here. This is not a chaotic place—not that this isn’t a family-friendly venue. Our bar is really a place where you can just relax and chill,” says Dimaano.
He says that in terms of service, the bar tries to give its customers genuine personal care because “we always make it a point to remind our staff/crew to exhibit excellent customer service.”
“The vast collection of MTV music videos is really our treasure. We also have a better parking area compared to the other establishments nearby. Security’s not bad, too. The building has two to three security guards on duty. We also have a very good restaurant/bar manager. Our chef’s a regular here too, so the quality and taste of our food is consistent,” Comia says.
