Cabalen: 25 years of great food and warm memories

MANILA, Philippines - Ian Tiongson grew up amid the mesmerizing aroma of good food forever cooking in his mom’s ever-bustling kitchen. But of course, his mom is innovative workaholic restaurateur Maritel Nievera who never tires of dreaming up glorious food ideas for her assorted restaurants that today include the Cabalen and Mangan chain of restaurants, Ebun, Cerveseria, Oody’s, and Soi, Eat Thai, Love Thai. But that’s getting ahead of this mouthwatering story that started 25 years ago.

She must have been born not with a silver spoon in her mouth but with a ladle in her hand. A young bride at 18, Maritel Nievera put up a deli shop-cum-resto named Bahay Pasalubong. It instantly drew droves of diners, with its sizzling chicken flying off the counter. When Ian was four years old, his mom opened the Pampanga Tocino & Delicacies Center in Lubao, Pampanga, branching out to Timog, Quezon City. And then, in 1983, she took a leap of faith and plunged into her first restaurant venture, Ituro Mo, Iluto Ko, in San Fernando, Pampanga.

“We lived just beside the restaurant,” Ian walks us down memory lane. “As a young boy, I observed how singularly devoted my mom was to the business she got into, spending long hours and meticulously attending to every little detail of her work. Aside from the restaurant, she ran a landscaping business that required her to travel to Manila often. My younger brother and I hardly ever saw her during the day. But despite her busy schedule, she made sure we recited the Serenity Prayer and the Prayer to our Guardian Angel together every night before putting us to bed. This nightly communion with the Divine has become a compelling legacy that I have passed on to my own children, Kailyn and Nicolas. And I truly cherished the times when we bonded together and dined out or when she would treat us at McDonald’s in Dau.”

Family food bonding: In foreground are Dion Shani, Ian Tiongson, and Cathy Ochoa. On the opposite side are Nicolas Tiongson, Maritel Nievera, Diane Tiongson, Frances Tanchanco, and Kailyn Tiongson during a food trip in Tokyo.

And then Maritel decided to relocate to Quezon City with her two sons and put up the first Cabalen restaurant right smack in the frenetic West Avenue stretch. It was the first, biggest, and only high-end turo-turo restaurant serving Kapampangan cuisine.

 Meanwhile, Ian was starting to imbibe his mom’s burning passion for food and so, he abandoned his dream of becoming an architect and decided to take up human resource and management, and followed in his mom’s revered footsteps. He had his first feel of the business when he did his OJT at the second Cabalen restaurant in SM Megamall, taking jobs as a bartender and a waiter.

“The mode of service was quite different from that of Cabalen-West Avenue. Our Megamall branch was the first Cabalen to serve food buffet-style,” relates Ian.

Straight out of college, in 1997, Ian helped the family business as a management trainee, familiarizing himself with every facet of operation.

An awe-struck Ian says, “As I got more involved in the operations, I began to view Mom with a new and keener perspective. I came to understand her better — her resolve, her tenacity, and her dedication as a businesswoman, as a restaurateur, and as an individual. She taught us the value of hard work and discipline, and how such virtues reap rewards. She constantly reminded us that we should strive to work for something we wanted. It did not come as a surprise that after my graduation from college, she encouraged me to work in the company for my allowances, rather than just asking for money.”

Up close and personal, Ian witnessed not just the ins and outs of running a restaurant but also its ups and downs, highs and lows. “During these times, I secretly admired how she confronted all the challenges thrown her way. My mom, I’m proud to say, is made of sterner stuff,” Ian declares. “She was unfazed by threats of growing competition. Instead, she navigated her way carefully, weighing the pros and cons before making a decision.”

Great eggspectation: Cabalen’s balut a la pobre

Thus, it took a while to convince her to consider franchising as a way of growing her business faster. “Upon the prodding of our regular customers Tonette and Mila Robles, my mom eventually forged a partnership with them and opened the first Cabalen franchise at the Sta. Lucia Mall in 2001.”

Through the years, Ian was witness to how his mom nurtured their restaurant business to what it has become today. “With sound planning, she was able to expand the business to 17 branches and establish even other food outlets like Ebun, which offers egg dishes in addition to authentic Kapampangan cuisine, Mangan featuring Filipino dishes with a twist, Oody’s which serves Thai food, Cerveseria which specializes in Spanish cuisine, and recently, Soi, Eat Thai, Love Thai,” Ian happily enumerates.

But more than the impressive statistics, Ian believes it’s the unflinching support and dedication of 600 individuals whom he considers as the real assets of their restaurants — their mainstays and business partners.

Excellent customer service and total satisfaction are two things Ian and his younger brother Adji have learned only too well from their mom. Ian stresses, “She never fails to remind everyone to work on the customers, never sacrifice quality (only the freshest ingredients under the strictest quality control) for expediency, and always offer value for their money. With a fickle and unpredictable market behavior, we have to make certain that every month, we introduce variations or have at least a new dish to offer our regular customers to stay competitive.”

Indeed, Cabalen has cooked its way to the top, becoming one of the accredited caterers of Malacañang Palace, the Senate and the House of Representatives. It received the National Consumers Quality Award from the National Consumer Affairs Foundation and the People’s Choice Awards Committee for exemplary product excellence and quality based on opinion surveys.

Cabalen’s food products, like its bagoong, have found their way into the US and the Middle East, and it’s working on expanding its line of exports.

Meat treat: Care for kare-kare?

Inspired by his mom, Ian himself opened his own Cabalen diner in SM Clark-Pampanga with his wife, former TV actress Diane Fuentes.

But for Cabalen, it’s not just about running a business and turning a handsome profit. It’s also about reaching out to those in need and making a difference in their lives. Ian recounts, “In 1996, when lahar flowing from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption devastated so much of Pampanga, my mom was so affected by the misfortune of her fellow kabalens that she immediately organized a group of volunteers to help distribute rice, food, medicines, blankets, and clothes to some 1,200 families living in the nearby resettlement areas. This humanitarian endeavor motivated us to continue the charitable activity and provided us the needed impetus to establish an outreach program which we named Cabalen para sa Kabataan to alleviate the plight of impoverished children. It is our way of sharing Cabalen’s success and blessings with the less fortunate.”

Looking far into the future, Ian can only dream of what Cabalen would be in the next 25 years. He reveals with a hint of excitement, “From the traditional all-Filipino food, every Cabalen branch will eventually carry Asian-Filipino cuisines to attract a bigger market segment. At the same time, we will constantly adjust to keep up with the changing preferences of the market. Initially, we have introduced this innovation at our TriNoma and SM Mall of Asia branches; three other branches — Festival Mall, Robinsons Ermita, and SM Megamall — will follow suit before the end of the year.”

Ian is also proud to announce that his brother Adji, who has a culinary course from the US under his toque, will be working full-time with Cabalen as head chef. So expect delicious innovations on the food offerings at Cabalen.

Ian Tiongson, vice president-business development of Cabalen helps his mom, Cabalen president Maritel Nievera, manage 20 Cabalen restaurants plus Ebun, Mangan, Oody’s, Cerveseria and Soi.

And expect more Cabalen branches to open — to date, there are 20 Cabalen restaurants; it will open soon in Davao, CDO, and Baguio. “We plan to increase the facilities to 40 within the next two to three years and be more aggressive in franchising as offers to put up Cabalen branches and its sister restos in many parts of the US and the Middle East keep pouring in,” says Ian.

Loyal patrons of Cabalen (count me in) certainly have a lot of delicious experiences to share: Like a first kiss, they fondly remember the first dish they tried. They relish thoughts of the many events they’ve celebrated with family and friends — birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, a bienvenida or despedida for balikbayan relatives, a job promotion, the list goes on and on.

The success story of Cabalen is all about talent, tenacity and dedication. And, how a mother's passsion has been imbibed by her children.