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: 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: Fried and Tasted

 #FOTW: Fried and Tasted

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.

Fried and Tasted is a fried-specialty store. We actually have two best sellers: kawali and crispy pork binagoongan. Our kawali is crispy on the outside yet juicy and flavorful on the inside. It’s cliché, we know, but one must try and taste it to know it’s true. 

Kawal

Meanwhile, our crispy pork binagoongan’s success came to us by surprise! We weren’t expecting that people would share the same love for Negros bagoong. Every time we recommend this dish to those first timers or foreigners coming in Sugbo Mercado, they go back to our booth just to tell us how they loved it. And plus, one thing our customers would say is they love our homemade spicy vinegar. 

Other than our best-sellers, we also offer pritchon (priton lechon), crispy pork adobo, calamari, fried chicken with abodo sauce, fried chicken with bagoong, monggo with kawali, fried rice and spam fries. Soon, we will be bringing in a few more hearty Filipino fried dishes.

As foodies, we love going around new food places in and out of Cebu to try different stuff. We noticed in most food bazaars, stalls that offer grilled foods are aplenty, but fried-specialty stores are rare. So what we did was, we listed a bunch of fried foods that we love and we realized that our list comprised of Filipino’s signature and are close to home.

Pritchon (Pritong lechon)

We have been here in Sugbo Mercado last March 15, 2018. We must say that we’re learning a lot about handling food, consumer behavior, placement presentation, and so much more! And as individuals; we are actually improving ourselves by continuously striving to improve our products. 

Who knows what the future holds? We will surely expand and venture out to a different establishment but as of now, our plan is simple. And that is to serve dished to our customers as if it will be their first and last time to eat with us. 

Spam Fries

Calamari

Owners of Fried and Tasted with staff

-Daryll Bihag and Chyll Son, owners of Fried and Tasted; Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week.

Visit Fried and Tasted at Sugbo Mercado. Their booth is near Black Pearl and Kuzina Guadalupe. And yes, we are open every Thursday to Sunday, from 5PM until 1AM. See you there at #YOURweekendfoodmarket! 

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Grilled Surfin' Ribs

#FOTW: Grilled Surfin' Ribs

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.

“ My husband and I love to eat and cook together with friends. So, we decided to open a restaurant and create this food concept as we have the passion and love for ribs and seafood. Grilled Surfin’ Ribs is about our love of eating and cooking. We emphasized it as “grilled” as here in Sugbo Mercado, we only serve our best selling ribs and different kinds of pasta.  

I am glad to say, that we joined Sugbo Mercado since their Day 1 and still we’re here. We really loved their concept and on how they take care of their tenants.  They have a strong team to market their tenants and they never fail to astound us.

Being one of their original tenants makes us proud and grateful that they entrusted us to provide good food and service to our locals. Even, tourists and/or foreigners would go to Sugbo Mercado just to try our ribs! And now, we're thinking of reviving some of our seafood products to bring back in Sugbo Mercado like our famous crab claws, garlic shrimps, and also, our chicken wings. We also plan to be back in the restaurant scene and open a space so we could serve our old menu to our suki’s. 

-Sharon Grace and Raymond Jimenez, owners of Grilled Surfin’ Ribs; Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week.

Visit Grilled Surfin’ Ribs at Sugbo Mercado. We are open every Thursday to Sunday, from 5PM until 1AM. See you there at #YOURweekendfoodmarket! 

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Took Lae Dee

#FOTW: Took Lae Dee 

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.

Took Lae Dee or in English, “good and affordable” is a Thai food shop in Sugbo Mercado that carries easy-to-cook dishes from the full menu of our restaurant, Little Thai Kitchen located at City Soho Mall, B. Rodriguez St., Cebu City. 

We, the owners, have worked and lived in Thailand for almost 20 years. Our business is aimed at bringing the authentic flavors of Thailand to our fellow Cebuanos without them breaking their piggy banks. Thus, we made sure that our dishes are authentic by importing our sauces, pastes, and spices from Thailand. We also made sure that our dishes are affordable.

At Took Lae Dee, we sell nine easy-to-cook dishes. These are: Tom Yum Fried Rice, Phat Mee Korat, Green Curry Fried Rice, Chicken Green Curry, Tom Yum Soup, Thai-style shrimp omelet with rice, Glass Noddle Salad Yum Woonsen, Kapao Moo Sap and Thai Sticky rice with mango.

Phad Mee Korat, Chicken Green Curry, Tom Yum Fried Rice and Shrimp Tom Yum Soup

Tom Yum Fried Rice

Chicken Green Curry

We’ve been with Sugbo Mercado since the last week of January this year. Our products have been well received by the people; this has been evidenced by the gradual increase of our weekly sales which we hope we can sustain. We also would like to see ourselves branching out to more locations and perhaps be visible in all Sugbo Mercado sites in the future. Indeed, opening a shop at Sugbo Mercado has been a blessing. We really feel that this is the best venue, where people from all walks of life converge, to showcase our dishes."

 -Adrian Francis Carredo owner of Took Lae Dee; Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week. 

Visit Took Lae Dee at Sugbo Mercado. We are open every Thursday to Sunday, from 5PM until 1AM. See you there at #YOURweekendfoodmarket. 

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Homesitte Shawarma

#FOTW: Homesitte Shawarma 

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.

“Homesitte Shawarma has been selling fresh, hot and meaty shawarma since 1996, and our passion for dishing out this flavorful meal has never been abated. We opened stall in most major malls in Bacolod City, but ultimately decided on operating from home by converting from home by converting our garage into a small restaurant.

Shawarma Beef

Shawarma

Shawarma Nachos

It has been my parents business since 1990s and I decided to add other menus that would complement to our existing ones. I’m also encouraged to improve our menu and recipe to fit it to the current trends. Instead of applying for a job after college, I decided to help my parents in expanding our business and make it grow. 

Every part of our shawarma is homemade, from the garlic and hot sauce, the pita bread itself and the marinated beef. We still do the traditional way wherein the beef is kept heated on the rotating split and the cooked shavings of juicy (on-the-inside) and crunchy (on-the-outside) meat are cut off and served in a classic wrap, or on the top of rice, with chopped tomatoes, cabbages, and onions.

Why choose Sugbo Mercado? Simply because for us, Sugbo Mercado is the best place to introduce your brand. Since we are from Bacolod, we wanted to try out the market first for a short-term lease and see if it would fit Cebuano’s taste. Aside from that, there is great food traffic, very accessible to employees and those people living near the area.

Shawarma Rice

We’re really doing great here! We are happy to see old and familiar faces from Bacolod City and we’re even happier to see new faces come and try our food. And we have plans in expanding branches in Cebu soon. We just need more time to study on how to market out and find the best locations."

-Veronika Ignacio of Homesitte Shawarma; Our foodtrepreneur of the week. Visit Homesitte Shawarma at Sugbo Mercado. We are open every Thursday to Sunday, from 5PM until 1AM. See you there at #YOURweekendfoodmarket.