One of the country’s most eligible bachelors, Luigi Vera, oversaw the expansion of Chili’s Grill & Bar Restaurant in the Philippines which now has a dozen stores, including two that opened this year.
Vera and his longtime business partners—Richie Yang and Robert Epes—are celebrating their two decades in the casual dining business, after putting up the first Chili’s store in Makati City in 1996.
“There were challenges along the way. It was never purely smooth and fun as we tread on our 20th year. It was like raising kids, tough but fulfilling,” says Vera who is very hands-on with the business.
He describes himself as more of a store guy than an office executive. He prefers having meetings in stores and making daily rounds of Chili’s outlets as managing director.
Spending time in stores is what he takes delight most about especially during the construction of a new branch. He set aside a lucrative career as a civil engineer back in the US where he and partners went to school.
For a US-educated guy, Vera is not the typical “Amboy-Conio” type. Chili’s crew is fond of his funny antics and of his personal managerial touch.
Educated in Xavier School from elementary to high school, he was also ‘Jesuits-raised” in the US. He studied at Sta. Clara University in the Bay area in the US, another Jesuits-run institution near San Jose.
Yang, one of his business partners, also enrolled at Sta. Clara while Epes, an American who grew up in the Philippines, also went to college in the Bay Area.
When it was time for them to go home to the Philippines, they thought of putting up a business together. What brought them together is their combined love for food and the Chili’s brand.
They formed Am-Phil Inc., but not after the three of them created stable professional careers in the Philippines with Vera working for Citibank and Yang and Epes for their family businesses.
“It was in 1987 when we first stepped into Chili’s in Cupertino, California and we instantly loved their food. We will order the same things—steak fajitas, burgers, baby back ribs, wings over buffalo and country fried steak. Our theory was to go into business while all of us were employed elsewhere so that the business wouldn’t be supporting us,” Vera says.
When asked why Chili’s is not as aggressive as other brands in creating more footprint in the casual dining space, Vera has a standard reply. He says that “expanding the brand, even as it is a necessary tool to grow a business, is not an imperative move for the company to survive competition.”
“We don’t need to be number one in terms of sales and size. We endured all these years because we value consistency. It is a big factor why we’re still here. People say Chili’s food is still the same quality as when we introduced the brand twenty years ago. The service is also friendly. That’s why we have customers who keep on coming back,” he says.
Expansion, he says, is nothing like finding location, “and that’s it.”
It should be finding the perfect location—a dilemma that has always been a big deal for the team.
“There should always be the right blend of where to put a branch, the volume of foot traffic and the convenience the branch can afford to give the customers,” Vera says.
He cites a long standing ambition to put up a branch in Manila City, along the famous Adriatico strip but traffic was outrageous and parking was a problem in the area.
Growing the brand to a dozen branches fell on perfect timing, a great gift for a 20 year-old franchise.
Chili’s pilot branch in Greenbelt, established in 1996, is still up and running, unlike other casual diners and restaurants that came up only to disappear years, if not months later.
Other Chili’s branches are strategically situated in Greenhills, Tomas Morato, Rockwell Power Plant, Alabang Town Center, Megamall, Fairview Terraces, Mall of Asia, UP Town Center and the Block at SM North Edsa.
Even as Chili’s bestsellers remain—baby back ribs, burgers, fajitas, burgers, chips, nachos, chicken crispers and margarita drinks—the food chain continues to update its menu such that it has three types of burgers with a wider variety.
It also adapted to Filipino’s choice of food and introduced Beef Salpicao and Country-Style Prok Belly, a Filipino signature fare that cannot be found in any Chili’s stores upstate and Chili’s anywhere in the world.
Alongside Chili’s franchise, Am-Phil has also ventured into smaller yet ambitious brands such as Super Bowl of China, Nanbantei of Tokyo, Tokyo Tonteki and Salvatore Cuomo Restaurant and Bar inside the Bonifacio Global Center.
As AmPhil grows its food enterprise, its workforce is also expanding with 1,000 people working for all company franchises.
The company, a strong believer in empowering children and education improvement, also supports Children’s Hour.
This is a shared vision of company co-owners. Vera is a devout Christian, from a family who goes to Church regulary if the occasion permits while Yang is a church minister.
“These values we share with the people we work with and with our customers,” says Vera.