At Café Claus, everyone is always in a festive mood. The staff will greet you ‘Merry Christmas’ every single day.
The café is bursting with everything Christmas – from poinsettias to nutcrackers, and colorful stockings to Christmas trees. As soon as you enter the main door, you will be greeted by walls trussed with garland glowing with warm lights.
“And if you’re lucky, you might see Santa Claus, too, and have a picture with him even it’s no longer the holiday season,” said actor Ken Chan during the opening of the first Christmas-themed restaurant in the country.
Located in Tandang Sora in Quezon City, Café Claus serves American and Filipino dishes. Officially opened its doors to the public on Dec. 27, it is the first venture of the 28-year-old actor into the food business.
“We opened here because this is where I grew up, the area is very memorable to me,” Ken said of the café’s location.
While opening a food business is a passion project for Ken, it’s also a product of careful planning. Part of the restaurant is also a commissary, which will soon serve the other branches of Café Claus.
“We are opening another branch at Promenade in Greenhills in January and then another one in Eastwood in March,” the actor shared.
And that’s not all, according to his business partner Ryan Kolton (a Filipino American actor who was born in Ukraine and grew up in the States but fell in love with the country in 2018 so he decided to stay), they plan to have a total of six branches by the end of 2022.
“We are opening a branch in La Union, Antipolo, and then in Tagaytay,” Ryan told Manila Standard Life.
“Ken and I share this passion for films and food, so we decided to do business together. What you’re seeing now is a product of three years of planning, creating, and conceptualizing. I had the pleasure of working with Ken for many years now,” Ryan shared.
“We’ve put up companies together. But we both have a passion for opening up a restaurant café, though, the challenge was, we really didn’t exactly know what the idea would be. When we first thought about it, we want the best features, the coffee machines, the fridge, the desserts,” he carried on.
According to Ryan, although it took them three years putting up the business and one year conceptualizing what items to put on the menu, there’s a much deeper meaning to all of their efforts bringing their vision into a reality.
“It’s actually a lifetime planning. I mean, the food we are serving here has an individual story. From puto bumbong, to the soup, to the roasted chicken. Some of the items in our hot kitchen are heirloom recipes. Some are the dishes we grew up eating, some are dishes that remind Ken of his childhood. Everything is from the family,” Ryan said.
Asked why put up a Christmas-themed food establishment, Ryan, who also has Spanish blood in him, gave a rather expected answer.
“Ken and I love Christmas. Who doesn’t love Christmas? For both my family and also for Ken’s family, Christmas is not just the holidays, it’s a day that marks both sad and good memories,” he said.
“Here at Cafe Claus, it’s Christmas every single day. But it’s deeper than that. It comes to the idea that every day, no matter what happens outside, no matter how down you feel, whenever you come to our doors, this is your home away from home. If there is one thing that you can take away, this is your family-first type home to come back to and reconnect to all the things that made your life and home beautiful,” Ryan ended.