Café Laguna plans to open branch in SM Northwing

Eyeing the huge market at the recently opened Northwing in the SM City Cebu, Laguna Group of Companies behind Café Laguna outlaid plans of opening another branch in the mall next year.

In an interview with Laguna Group of Companies Franchising Director Jill Viado, she said that next year they will be opening another Café Laguna branch at the ground floor of SM City Cebu’s Northwing.

“In SM there are a lot of potential markets that we can penetrate. It definitely ranges from classes A to D and the high-end area they opened is absolutely fit-right with our market,” said Viado.

Meanwhile, their Café Laguna inside Ayala which has recently celebrated its 13 years of operation will also be transferred outside the al fresco area of Ayala which will be revealed next year.

According to Viado the mall’s al fresco strip will feature different restaurants, coffee shops and other lifestyle and entertainment outfits from Cebu and even Manila.

But as a home grown brand, Café Laguna is optimistic that they will be at par with the new locators in the al fresco strip as they already have a captured market, having been in Cebu for quite some time.

Laguna Group of Companies is composed of Café Laguna, Laguna Garden Café, Lemon Grass, and its catering service segment.

Lemon Grass has just recently celebrated its second year anniversary. It was established in December of 2005 and after two years of operation it has already established its own separate market from Café Laguna. It caters to a client-base composed of foreigners mostly Asians and domestic customers, a big chunk of which are yuppies or young professionals.

“It was a perfect timing to come up with our Vietnamese and Thai menu and unexpectedly Lemon Grass has been receiving positive reception from its customers both foreign and local since the day it started until now,” Viado said.

Viado also relayed that in the next years to come; Laguna Group of Companies will be looking after other possible menu and cooking styles that will be marketable to the Cebuano market and will be opening more branches in their franchising venture. In fact she revealed that many big mall outfits in Manila have offered them mall space but they have been reluctant to start deeply considering the feasibility of putting up a branch in the locations.

 “Before we open more branches, there is a need to build up the customer traffic first because we don’t want our franchisees to experience hardships. We want our franchisees to be able to gain their investment back in no time. It will be easier to put up a branch if the location will be ready for business,” discussed Viado.

With their years of experience in the restaurant industry, Viado said that they always keep in mind serving the best for their customers.

“The people know that we really have deep concern for the quality of the food we serve and we are trying hard to constantly improve our service. We are never complacent as we are still on our toes especially now that many competitors are coming in Cebu.” – Rhia de Pablo