SENTREP Food Trip - Eating along Makati Avenue – Lea Olegario
In the busy street of Makati Avenue is where our Entrep class had our Food Trip session.
We started out at A-Venue and proceeded to the Food tents catering different dishes like Filipino, Persian, and Italian. Most stalls cater Filipino dishes developed locally and the popular street food like isaw and barbeque. We tried popular street food isaw, locally developed dish Ilocos Empanada, grilled vegetables, and had sago-gulaman for drinks.
The area is full of professionals and foreigners being near the Makati business area. Also, it is very near the red light district and hotels which again attracts a lot of foreigners. The business concept is that it provides additional tenant space to small entrepreneurs and stall owner. What's unique about the area is that half of it is purely for stalls that can sell anything from clothes to lights. Other food concessions like Banchetto, Mercato, etc are mostly comprised of food stalls. Also, the tents have lights giving it a more festive feel. There really is not much innovation in the food stalls as they are very much like the rest. I believe though that A Venue was successful in utilizing the parking space in a much profitable way and also this place adds to the attraction of the place and provides A venue hotel tenants more choices in terms of eating and getting a feel of what the Philippines is all about.
Next on the list is the Korean restaurant just a block away from A venue. It is offering an authentic taste of Korean food to the market in Makati Ave. The crew of the store is very much limited and it includes the owner. Delivery of the food is great and the crew although limited attended to all our needs. The Korean store's food though is much like all the other Korean food. The grill in the restaurant is quite different in that the charcoal is placed at the sides and the meat is grilled at the sides. The grill that I have seen in other Korean stores are just like a glass on top of a stone but Dona Dona, which is the name of the store, uses Charcoal and grills on the side. There are several customers in the store when we ate there and it was not a weekend so I would say that the restaurant may be doing well. The features of the store though does not look very modern and looks like a painted box from outside. There are many Korean restaurants with the same offering and the edge of this one over the rest is that it is in Makati ave.
After a hearty meal, we went back to A-venue at the original meeting place to have some coffee and cakes. Goldilocks is unique in A-Venue because there was no other that can offer a variety of desserts and coffee at the same time at an affordable price. The business concept is to provide a sweet moment for everyone. Pasalubongs are also offered in there and this can be appealing to the foreigners that frequent the place as these can be the gifts that will be bought by the foreigners and brought to their own country. Polvoron is quite popular with Tourists. The innovation is that it offers drinks – bottled, hot, and cold. The business is a success as a lot of customers buy the goods. Some people may be able to sit inside for a while and get a short bite but the lack of tables and chairs actually lessen the manpower needed to maintain the store. The two crews are more than enough to handle the entire store. Profit is maximized by minimizing expenses.
In this trip, we learned that businesses would have different concepts and they can all be successful. Location is very much important as well as the applicability of the business to the market in that location. Uniqueness of the business is also key as this can be a determining factor on how the customer will remember and try out the shop. Little things that may add value to the product/service would matter a lot especially in a highly competitive environment such as Makati Ave in this case. Success and failure of a business can be determined by these things but careful planning and execution may allow for the business to thrive.
