Starting off on wrong foot produced culinary success

The Lita Urbina Story

CEBU, Philippines — "I started wrong," is the weapon that brought Julita ‘Lita’ P. Urbina to the summit of success, as the matriarch of Cebu's largest restaurant group--the Laguna Group of Companies.

Married at 18, Lita dropped her dream of becoming a journalist and settled to be a dotting young mother before she could even fully blossom into a woman.

Her tale is yet another testament that testifies the truth, that success does not only favors those who acquired one or more diplomas, but to everyone who has the right determination, passion, and endurance.

Started as a turo-turo carenderia in the residential neighborhood of Lahug in Cebu City, Lita’s home kitchen expanded into a multi-brand of restaurants, bannering the ‘Cafe Laguna’ as its flagship label.

The Group’s other restaurant brands are Lemon Grass, Parilya and Ullis.

The P300 she used as her seed capital 27 years ago, now becomes a growing and fruit bearing tree that continues to satisfy the palates of people across nationalities and social status.

Mother’s best

When her physician husband Ricardo Urbina got the assignment to serve as military Doctor in Cebu, Lita together with their small children tagged along and started a new life in the Bisaya-speaking City.

“I can’t stay at home without work,” although she is an undergraduate Lita managed to get office jobs even while in their hometown in Biñan, Laguna.

In Cebu, she was employed as one of the division heads of Montebello Villa Hotel for three years. The corporate job however, did no good to her first priority as a mother and wife. She quit being an office and career and decided to be a stay-at-home-mom.

Not used to not earning a centavo or more a day to help her husband feed the growing family, Lita started to sell part of her cooked viand for family, and displayed them outside of their two-storey apartment.

Before long, her Tagalog-inspired dishes caught the whim of Cebuano neighbors. This was the birth of ‘Mother’s Best’ carenderia in the late 1980s in an apartment located right in the corner of Wilson and Stephenson (now Torralba) streets in Camp Lapu-Lapu, Lahug.

Lita recalled, she was only doing what she taught she does best: Cooking.

At home, Lita mustered her motherly obligations at its best. In her free time, she gave her best to cook for growing customers.

Mom-in-business

A mother of six children, Lita’s knack for delectable home-made cooking caught the attention of corporate customers and begun the catering business.

With the aid of one house-help, Lita begun to deliver bulk of lunch boxes to offices, until she was offered to operate a canteen in one of Cebu’s big manufacturing plants.

Her routine was to wake up every day at three in the morning to buy fresh ingredients for the day’s three full meals.

This good break opened up another opportunity for Lita to establish a small, quaint, elegant restaurant called ‘Cafe Laguna’, in the same area where it all started— at the Urbina’s rented apartment in Lahug.

Laguna in Cebu

Her savings from catering, operating a canteen afforded Lita to convert her home ground floor to a small restaurant. This time, it is called ‘Cafe Laguna.’

This time, the turo-turo eatery transformed into a fully-air conditioned 10-table resto.

Lita and the late Dr. Ric Urbina met in their hometown in Biñan, Laguna. She said Laguna was the birthplace of their love-affair. It is their common-ground and for them it somehow spells magic.

Before long, the ‘Laguna’ word worked like whirlwind and the family was able to buyout the four-door apartment, and the magic continues to work up until now.

In the early 1990’s the Spanish inspired facade of the pretty restaurant was one of the posh dining landmarks in Cebu.

Tagalog dishes like its signature puto bumbong, kare-kare, fish and fried lumpia, pancit palabok, pandan chicken, palitao, sinigang (fish and pork), dinuguan, among others become familiar to Cebuano’s discriminating tastebuds.

Big break

Just when Lita was comfortable with her little success managing the specialty restaurant ‘Cafe Laguna’, she was invited by the Ayala Group to open a restaurant together with the opening of its shopping mall in Cebu.

In 1994, Lita risked to spend P25 million to construct a two-storey block building restaurant crowing the newly opened Ayala Center Cebu’s shopping destination.

“It was my biggest investment,” she was a bit apprehensive, but also elated of Ayala Group’s confidence to pick a small homegrown restaurant like hers.

The investment paid off, and Laguna Garden consistently reaped the Ayala Mall’s top merchants awards over the years.

Today, it has two outlets within the Ayala Center Cebu, together with outlets of its Lemon Grass and Ullis restaurants.

Cafe Laguna Group now has 14 branches, nine in Cebu while the rest are spread in other key cities like Ormoc, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Dumaguete and General Santos.

Second generation

Now, the multi-awarded matriarch is ready to fully indulged in her favourite pastimes—shopping and travel.

The restaurant chain is slowly turned over to the second generation-led by sons Chef Raki and John Paul and daughter Jill.

Other children, Greta (medical doctor), Guia (nurse) and Grace are part of the company’s board.

According to Lita, she has nothing to worry about the growth and future journey of the business, as it has already established a professional family business constitution that would protect the health of the business for generations.

Although, she is slowly unloading her responsibilities and hands-on management of her growing region-wide Laguna Group kitchen, Lita continues to sprinkle her magic of “mother’s best touches” in all Laguna Group strings of branded restaurants.

Every dish is served with a taste of home, comfort and pleasure, a seasoning only a great mother could give. (FREEMAN)