Street Food : A Food Journey

Bringing a Taste of the Streets Closer To You

Written by : Jet Luga

From the same group responsible for the biggest weekend night market in the Cebu metropolitan area comes a new opportunity for locals to dine and immerse themselves in local food culture. 

Photo by : C E B U on Facebook

Street Food by Sugbo Mercado opened its doors to the public on January 10, 2020 and it hit the ground running with its carefully curated fleet of authentic street food vendors, all conveniently located within the heart of the Cebu Business District. Unlike the other institutions of the Sugbo Mercado Food Bazaar Group which mostly operate at night and during the weekends, StreetFood is open every day of the week from 12 noon to 12 midnight. 

Street Food was brought about as a response to the rising demands of citydwellers for convenient and accessible food options that are high-quality and budget-friendly. This unique collection of Cebuano street food vendors is located beside Krispy Kreme at the active zone garden of Ayala Center Cebu and serves as a perfect filling station for commuters and workers within the area. StreetFood has consciously positioned itself as the go-to platform for authentic street food vendors to showcase their delicious eats to bigger and wider audiences.

It has always been the belief of the Sugbo Mercado Food Bazaar Group that food serves as an untouchable institution for any prevailing culture. In order to get to know one’s culture, you have to get to know their food. And it’s through the belief and commitment to this principle that led to the establishment of StreetFood, a hotbed for all of the finest authentic Cebuano street food. Aside from making well-loved delicacies more accessible to the everyday Cebuano, Street Food also seeks to elevate the status of local Cebuano eats as a cultural institution that is well-embedded in the fabric of Cebuano identity. With common Cebuano staples like ngohiong, tuslob-buwa, balut, manok bisaya, dirty ice cream, and more, there’s bound to be something for everyone at this one-of-a-kind food market that operates year-round, every day of the week. 

Street Food is proud to have established this new and improved ecosystem that helps connect street food vendors to hungry diners more efficiently and effectively than ever before. This food park serves as a manifestation of Sugbo Mercado’s efforts to re-embed Cebuano dining culture deep into its overall identity. With Street Food, and potentially, many other future projects just like it, Cebuanos will become more in touch with their heritage through their food. And hopefully, this will lead to a brighter light being shed on Cebuano street food on the world stage. 

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Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Senyorito Scallops

#FOTW: Senyorito Scallops

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Senyorito Scallops is about selling flavored scallops. Basically, we try to incorporate scallops with different flavors, not the one where you commonly get from restaurants, where you get to taste the same flavor over and over again. We, however, specialize in scallops all the way. We have three different flavors: the Classico, which is creamy garlic, there’s the Spicy Classico, then there’s Pestofied, which is a unique flavor for the ones who enjoy Italian sauce because of its pesto sauce with basil. We don’t really have a bestseller, since our products always depends on the personal preference of our customers.

Our brand started with me and two of my other friends. We’re all nurses. We came up with selling here in Sugbo Mercado because we wanted extra income. Sugbo Mercado is the perfect channel for those who are young entrepreneurs who want to venture into this kind of business.

We wanted to sell something that is also our personal favorites. We settled with scallops because we all liked eating it, and also because we asked ourselves, who doesn’t like scallops? It’s also very easy to prepare. We didn’t want to sell something that we had to cook ahead, considering our demanding work time of 8-12 hours a day. Since we started the business, we were always very hands-on and we were the ones who cooked the scallops. We found it very time constraining already later on, which is why we hired a few people to take our place, but of course under close supervision as well.

The name and brand of Senyorito is from Senyor Sto. Nino. All Cebuanos are believers of Senyor Sto. Nino, and we being fellow believers, we thought that this could be our way of giving back to Him and His people. In the way that we know, we incorporate the different flavors in a Filipino dish that we all know and love, and serve it as an offering to Him and all Cebuanos out there.

What we like about Sugbo Mercado is the diversity. We think that’s why Sugbo Mercado succeeded so much – because of its diversity. They don’t only offer the usual food we find in malls and other restaurants, but they also offer different kinds of cuisine. They’re not predictable. You can see it from the variation of desserts, drinks, and meals. It’s the perfect place, really.

We started last May 2016. Sugbo Mercado was year old then, so we can still remember few of the old tenants that started with us. It’s also very heartwarming and overwhelming to see how people accepted Senyorito Scallops. During our early days, people would really line up for their own order of scallops and we were just really amused with that. Even until now, we’re very happy and glad with the sales. We have sold out nights, which we’re very surprised with but very grateful for because of the support of the people. We even have sukis from way back that we still see every now and then. It’s good to know that we’ve made an impact to the people through the food that we serve them.

As of now, our only future plan is considering having other flavors and maybe other scallop-related dishes. An expansion is possible, but we’ll cross the bridge when we get there. 

- Lanie Mae Beronilla of Senyorito Scallops; Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week. Visit Senyorito Scallops at Sugbo Mercado of Garden Bloc, IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays, 5pm-1am. See you there at #YourWeekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Frappes To Go

#FOTW: Frappes To Go

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Frappes To Go is basically what I love about coffee and everything in it. It’s a mixed healthy drink at some point, like the Matcha, which is my favorite drink. We conceptualize it with banana, since it’s actually a mixture of fruity drinks with coffee as well. Frappes to Go can be taken out and brought anywhere one would like. One gets to enjoy the ice blended coffee and healthy drink. 

Our bestseller is Java. It’s when you add an extra puff of coffee sauce so it’s a stronger mixture of coffee. If you’re a coffee lover, you’d love it. Our other bestseller is blueberry cheesecake. I know Filipinos love cheesecake, so that would be my top choice for people who love desserts. It’s a perfect combination of cheesecake and coffee, and a little mixture of blueberry. It’s a mixture of our syrups for all our sweet drinks here at Frappes To Go. My personal favorite would be the Matcha, over anything else, mainly because it’s a healthy drink: it’s good for the skin and it’s an anti-cancer ingredient.

Java Chip 

I collaborated with a famous brand to create Frappes to Go, with all my mixtures and ingredients from them alone. Of course, I add my own personal touch to each drink aside from their recipe. I try to make the drinks I make both delicious and affordable at the same time, since Cebuanos are very wary about the pricing and how worthy the drink actually is.

As I said, I love to drink coffee. I’m also the kind of person who’s always on the go, so my time’s really important. I thought, what business can I have that could really relate to me as a person? When I went to a certain coffee shop, I got the idea of Frappes To Go from buying their Mocha frappe. I incorporated it to my brand – having ice blended frappes which you can bring anywhere and anytime.

I actually already have my own brand in some malls before I created Frappes To Go. Sir JP was one of my regular customers there, and he introduced Sugbo Mercado to me and invited me to join. I really love the atmosphere in Sugbo Mercado because everyone from every class is here. They can just buy whatever they like, and entrepreneurs like me who want to start small can also go here and sell what they want to sell. They’re given a chance to grow. Here in Sugbo Mercado, entrepreneurs are introduced to the market – what we sell, how we sell, and how driven we are to sell.

I started January this year, and it’s been amazing. There are times that it doesn’t go well, since my market will depend on the weather conditions we have here in Cebu. Despite that, I didn’t expect my brand to be accepted and to have a market value here because we have a lot of competitors, but I do love the challenge. I love Sugbo Mercado, and I’m here to stay.

I’m a visionary and I’m positive in every aspect of business I am in to. A few years from now, I know I want to help people. The best investment I could think of is that I help people like my staff, to provide them everything they need. If you got the right staff, then your business will grow tremendously.

- Cathy Flores of Frappes To Go; Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week. Visit Frappes To Go at Sugbo Mercado of Garden Bloc, IT Park. They are beside Cheesecake Story. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays, 5pm-1am. See you there at #yourWEEKENDfoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Jamal's Lechon

#FOTW: Jamal's Lechon

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Jamal is basically the brainchild of my husband, whose street name is Jamal. Our goal is stand out in the food market and be known for good lechon with a twist. We take pride in being innovative, as we are the first in Cebu to serve lechon stuffed with seafood. We actually have more products which are featured in our Facebook page, but only our bestselling lechon is displayed at Sugbo Mercado. Our customers’ top choice is usually the spicy lechon belly.

Because of our innovative way of business, we’ve actually been recognized by big names around Cebu; people who want to avail of our stuffed lechon. The Osmena’s and the Gullas’ have ordered from us, and we’re very glad that they’ve given interest to our product.

We weren’t originally Jamal’s – we had a shared business with our partner called ReLechonShip. Eventually, we split up and created Jamal’s. My husband came from a family of Lechoneros – both sides – so he’s always wanted to sell lechon. You could say it runs in the blood.

Choosing Sugbo Mercado was such a good decision for us. It has such a wide market range, where people from all walks of life often go to. It’s the best marketing place a business like us could ask for, along with their social media and other advertising strategies lending us a helping hand. With Sugbo Mercado, we’ve become known to the people. As Jamal’s, we’ve only been here for 6 months, and we already have loyal customers.

To be honest, business wasn’t all good from the start. We may have started Jamal’s in January, but we were also planning to close by the end of the month. Sales just wouldn’t boom as expected, and it was bad on marketing expense. But after a little renovation and application of marketing strategies with the staff, we immediately got back up. Since then, the sales have tripled and we’ve been earning more than enough.

We want our lechon to spread nationwide. For now, we’re trying to reach the Manila market and have a branch there. We’ve actually been meeting friends from different places; we travel just to meet them and let them order from us, and a train of orders would follow. We even reached Singapore a month ago. Reconnecting with our old colleagues and friends from the past and the present has helped improve our business that way. Hopefully soon enough, our lechon reaches past the appetites of our own circle and be loved all over the country. 

- Madel Basiga of Jamal's Lechon; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Jamal's Lechon at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #yourWEEKENDfoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Sweet Fix

#FOTW: SWEETFIX 

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Just like it's name, Sweet Fix intends to serve its customers a sweet and satisfying classic that just never goes wrong. It's all about making people enjoy a different kind of ice cream - to try something out of the ordinary and foreign, and deliver it to them for easy access. Our aim is to let them enjoy what we enjoy. I mean, who doesn't love ice cream?

Ice cream is practically perfect for this country; well, most of the time. The concept of Sweet Fix makes ice cream all the more exciting and enticing to the market here, which was why we brought it in. It wasn't that popular in Cebu when we entered, and we knew we needed something unique. It was viral in Youtube at the time, which was where we learned how to make it ourselves.

We knew we wanted to be part of Sugbo Mercado for our brand's exposure. There's a lot of food traffic here, which makes the people stay. When we introduced the brand, people loved it. We've been with Sugbo Mercado for a little more than a year, and even started at their CBP branch. We immediately flourished when we moved to this branch. We're still here after a year, constantly selling our bestsellers - Cookies and Scream, and the Hazelnut Grace, which is actually banana and Nutella together.

The ride's been great, and someday soon, we plan on expanding. Hopefully, we'll get everyone their own sweet fix.

- Abigail Gubalor; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Sweet Fix at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Mr. Benny

#FOTW: MR. BENNY

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Mr. Benny is all about shaved ice cream cultured by the Taiwanese but we upgraded it to make it our own Chinese shaved ice cream. Our bestsellers are chocolate, mango, and matcha. 

We were inspired to start Mr. Benny because we want to share the culture of the Chinese. We noticed that we have a lot of sorbetes ice cream here in the Philippines but not much shaved ice cream. We want many Filipinos to experience our style of shaved ice cream.

         We chose Sugbo Mercado specifically because its market has so much potential in it. People of all ages always visit Sugbo Mercado. I also think that this dessert that we offer can become popular through the weekend food market. We have been with Sugbo Mercado for only 4 months and so far there have been good times and bad times. I believe that success is maybe seasonal because there are certain events here in Cebu and the weather is always changing.

As for the future of Mr. Benny, I have many plans.Other than opening in SM Seaside, maybe we will expand our branches. We might put some in Davao and maybe some in Mandaue.

- Patrick del Rosario of Mr. Benny; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Mr. Benny at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Rainbow Smoothies

#FOTW: RAINBOW SMOOTHIES

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Rainbow Smoothies contain more than 10 mixed fruits in each cup. When customers see our product, they really get what they see. We have different fruits like dragonfruit, apples, melons, watermelons, grapes, and a lot more. We call it Rainbow Smoothies because it looks colorful. 

We opened the store just about a month ago. We went to Thailand early March where we got inspired by their concept of an all-natural multiple fruit shake. We saw a lot of customers come to their store which meant a lot of people like fruits. We ourselves like fruits a lot, and since people at present prefer to be healthier than usual, we decided to open up here; no one had the same concept in Sugbo Mercado, or even in Cebu. We tried applying to get in Sugbo Mercado, and fortunately, we got in. 

Sugbo Mercado was the first place that popped into our minds when we were thinking of a place to put up our business. It’s a little expensive compared to other locations, yes, but the population reach is more important for us. If we pay less for rent but end up having a handful of customers, then we would be at a loss. Unlike in Sugbo Mercado, that even if we spend a lot, we’re guaranteed a lot of customers and our capital goes back to us. 

We’re definitely planning to add more products to our menu someday. We discovered other food concepts in Thailand as well, like mixing kiwi and ginger and other kinds of flavors in a cup. Just as long as it’s all-natural and healthy, we’re considering all the options we can find.

We’re on our fifth week and so far, it’s been good. All our stocks are sold out by the end of the day, and that’s enough to cover a lot of our expenses. We want to open in other branches, and even a lot of our friends are interested in franchising our brand. Although I’m not considering it now because it’s too early, I’m up for planning and opening other branches later on in the future. 

- Mary Rose Aldemita and Cecile Mayot of Rainbow Smoothies; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Rainbow Smoothies at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: CHEESECAKE STORY

#FOTW: CHEESECAKE STORY

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Cheesecake Story is, like it’s name, all about cheesecake. It’s concentrating more on being unique, and concentrating on the flavor itself. I noticed that there are a lot of desserts right now that just concentrate on being sweet. I, on the other hand, would like to let people taste different levels of sweetness. 

The bestsellers are Banana Gone Nuts and Albuquerque, most probably because the blend of flavors is sort of like a match made in heaven. Cheesecake is sweet, and I pair it with dark chocolate, so it’s not as sweet as others. Banana Gone Nuts contains walnuts, caramel, and bananas. Albuquerque just contains almonds, so it’s a good mash of flavors, because the almond gives the crunch to the frozen cheesecake. In some way, it sort of becomes ice cream because it melts in your mouth.

Banana Gone Nuts

You know one of those points in your life where you look down at yourself and you’re just looking for your purpose? I was at that point. I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, I’m not going anywhere.” Then suddenly, it just came to me. I saw a video of  Sugbo Mercado place a year ago, and I’ve always wanted to try it out, but I wasn’t given any opportunity back then since there were a lot of issues. This – now – is the right time. When I came in Sugbo Mercado, they were very encouraging to push me to enter The Market as well. It hasn’t been smooth sailing, but I can say that it was meant to happen, because everything is already laid out.

Sugbo Mercado is almost all about food, and foodies come here all the time. Sugbo Mercado concentrates on the uniqueness of food. It has a good market, where I can serve my not-so-ordinary cheesecakes. People usually take photos of their food before eating them, which makes this market more advantageous for my brand’s marketing.

I actually just hit a month recently here in Sugbo Mercado. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from people which is what’s important to me right now. Business doesn’t boom as soon as you start; it often has slow progress. Right now, it’s good enough. 

I haven’t thought much about the future since I’m concentrating on the now. To be honest, I tend to freak out when thinking about it so try to avoid it. What I do is I take it one day at a time. Sugbo Mercado is opening The Market soon, and they’ve offered me a stall there. I’m thinking about that now, whether I should go for it or not. It’s business, so there’s a lot of risks.

- Kristine Cruz, owner of Cheesecake Story; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Cheesecake Story at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Macology 101

 #FOTW: MACOLOGY 101

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Macology 101 has been a Mac and Cheese food stall ever since we started at the then newly opened Sugbo Mercado back in 2015. We sell comfort food items, but the highlight and bestseller among all is our Mac and Cheese. Ours can be considered different from the regular ones because we have different kinds of flavors, each of them having different toppings as well. This all started at one of our Sunday dinners with the kids. We came up with the Mac and Cheese at home, and through that, my eldest son Joaquin suggested to sell the product in their upcoming food fair in school. Opportunities just escalated from there.

Apart from the Mac and Cheese, we also have different comfort food items like the Grilled Cheese Sandwich. We also serve beverages in a pouch, and pasalubong items like our Salted Egg Potato Chips, Fish Skin, Chicken Skin, and others. 

Bacon Mac 'n Cheese

We’ve been in the business for 3 years already, and everything has been really awesome for us; we have evolved from one product to about more than 10 different products already. Through Sugbo Mercado, our brand has become very familiar with the locals. There’s a lot of stiff competition here, so our creativity is always challenged and exercised. We were able to cater to Cebu, but also outside of Sugbo Mercado and of Cebu as well. Our pasalubong items, the Salted Egg Potato Chips and the others, are being sold in AirAsia, and parts of Manila. If it weren’t for Sugbo Mercado, this idea wouldn’t have come true.

My kids are really proud of what we have right now, and they’re even feeling it. We’re all getting into the benefits of the business because I’ve actually never been into business my whole life, so this is my first venture. We’re quite blessed that everything’s been so successful for us. It’s life-changing for our family, since it’s helped us with our budget. Because of this food stall, we’ve experienced things that we’d never experience way back when I was just focusing on one job. 

- Joan Zanoria, owner of Macology 101; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Macology101 by Little Chef at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Gatsa-a

 #FOTW: Gatsa-a

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Gatsa-a derived as “gatas at tsa-a” offers a great taste of tea combined to milk and fruit flavors with add-ons such as pearls, pudding, nata de coco and more! Our brand’s bestsellers are: Wintermelon, Okinawa, Hokkaido, Matcha and Cookies & Cream.  We also offer Chinese products such as siomai and ngohiong. 

Wintermelon

The whole concept of our business was out-of-curiosity. Personally, I’m not a fan neither of tea nor milk but I love mixing and stuffing. Meanwhile, my business partner, Chimneeluz loves tea but not a fan of milk. But hey, we are both food lovers. Being best of friends since college and had our own life, we didn’t miss out chatting and sharing desires; Thus, our curiosity and commonality jive got us into trying Milk Tea and Fruit Tea. Plus the fact that it’s a big hit to millennial based on research, so we gave it a try. 

Matcha

We started last November 2017 and we are on our 6^th month this May! Indeed Sugbo Mercado gave us the best avenue to promote and create a name to the public with our exposure at Sugbo Mercado. We have always wanted to have a one-stop shop for our group of friends and customers to saddle and bond in a comfortable place to stay and chat. 

And now, we’ve drafted plans for the next few months and hopefully, we could embark on a stable shop to settle down with our products as Sugbo Mercado’s advocacy is to incubate Cebu’s Foodtrepreneurs to grow them into best local brands.

Also, we had the best of time and we’re grateful to the people we are surrounded with. Business associates were so warm and friendly that we’ll surely be missing out if we move out.

-Joyce  Anne Ruma and Chimneeluz Remonde, owners of Gatsa-a; Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week.

Visit Gatsa-a at Sugbo Mercado. We are open every Thursday to Sunday, from 5PM until 1AM. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket.