I guess you might call me a COO (child of the owners).
My parents are successful entrepreneurs. They had been running Sizzling Plate for well over 17 years when I thought I’d put up a business of my own. After all, I have their genes and have learned the ropes, having worked in the restaurant as an apprentice of sorts.
Theirs was a sit-down steak restaurant for the AB market. I thought I’d succeed by being a bit different: I downsized the servings, took out the fancy service, brought down the price and catered to folks on a budget.
That is how Steaks and Toppings came to be.
It was self service. I didn’t have to hire waiters. It saved me not only payroll money but also personnel management headaches.
I miscalculated at first. I thought finding a market for Steaks and Toppings would be easy because Baguio folks would associate it with Sizzling Plate which was then quite known in the city. As it turned out, the automatic patronage did not really come.
The opening month was great, but after the first wave of customers, the crowd dwindled. I had many sleepless nights and was constantly asking my mother if business was really like that. My mother told me to hang in there, ride it out, and try to find ways to make my business click.
Finding a niche
My sales went down after the opening month and I tried to persuade my parents to allow me to use their trade name in my restaurant in something like “Mini Sizzling Plate.” I thought if people would make the immediate connection with the well-established Sizzling Plate, that would make all the difference. But my parents refused. They told me I could not ride on the hard work they invested in building their name. I would have to stick to my original name or change it to another if I wanted to.
So I hang on.
My wife (who was then my girlfriend) and I would distribute leaflets along Session Road everyday and persuade people to try out the place. I would also invite our friends and give away free meals to my parents’ employees just so it would look like there were people eating in my restaurant. It helps when people see there are “warm bodies” in your restaurant. Nobody likes going to an empty place.
A million prayers later, business started to pick up. By the second year more customers kept coming back on a regular basis.
At first, the place was frequented mostly by UP Baguio students. It has since become a stopover of young people out to celebrate a victory or the end of exams or just to hang around. We served, for example, a sumptuous meal of pork chop steak with gravy and side veggies. That was a winner.
Financing support
My parents, however, helped me in financing.
When I began, no bank would lend me money. I had no credit record. I was lucky my parents were willing to lend me the P400 thousand I needed to start. Still, the transaction was more professional and business-like than anything else.
I paid back the loan, plus 10 per cent interest, based on an agreed schedule. It was not unlike dealing with a bank. Every time I paid, my parents would issue a receipt and recorded the payment.
Still, it was nice to know I was in no danger of losing my house nor my shirt should I default on my loan. On the other hand, I felt obliged to pay religiously so that my siblings would see it my loan as a transparent deal to be followed when their own turn to ask for financial help comes.
I guess it was the right way for our parents to bring us up. I never felt I had a wall to lean on should things go bad, only that I would incur more debt that I had to pay later should my business fail.
I had the advantage of having entrepreneurial parents. That helped a lot – the genes, the business training, having entepreneurial role models, the financial backing. But it is not enough. It is the whole “becoming your own man” written large.
Juan Carlos Anton
Steaks and Toppings
Baguio City
Photo: Steaks and toppings from OpenRice.com