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: 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.