Cebu resto expansion continues; Manila, Mindanao next
HOMEGROWN restaurant Golden Cowrie is primed to open 10 more branches by the end of 2017.
Earl Kokseng, execomm member of Cebu Golden Restaurant and Golden Cowrie Franchising, Inc. — which owns and operates the brand — said most of these branches will be in Metro Manila and some in Mindanao.
“The last few years have been spent expanding in Visayas and Mindanao. Now that we have branches in every key city in those regions, we felt that we were ready to go to Manila. There’s a lot of room for expansion there,” he told reporters during the opening of Golden Cowrie Filipino Kitchen at Ayala Center Cebu on Wednesday.
Established in 1982, Golden Cowrie has become an institution in Cebu.
Its new store brings together the traditional dishes of Golden Cowrie and “refreshingly Filipino” flavors of Salinas, two of the brand’s concepts.
Golden Cowrie’s other concept, Hukad, is located in shopping establishments to target “mall rats.”
The new restaurant can accommodate up to 50 people in its 125-square-meter main dining area and an additional 70 persons at the al fresco area.
Golden Cowrie Filipino Kitchen features reinterpretations of classic dishes such as Miki Negra with squid ink sauce, Pomelo Salad with singkamas and calamansi dressing, and Pocherong Katag.
At present, the restaurant has 31 branches in 18 key cities in the country, 10 of which are company-owned in Cebu, while the rest are franchises.
In the VisMin area, the restaurant is present in Bacolod, Butuan, Bohol, Boracay, Cotabato, Davao, Digos, Dumaguete, General Santos, Iloilo, Pagadian, Ozamis, Tacloban, Tagum, and Zamboanga.
After more than three decades, Kokseng said they felt they were ready to conquer Metro Manila, the biggest metropolis in the country.
The homegrown brand started expanding to Luzon last year, shelling out around P20 million to put up a commissary that would support its operations there.
It currently has five stores in Metro Manila, with the first Filipino Kitchen only launched in November 2016.
Kokseng said the new branches will all be franchises and that the concept they will introduce will depend on the market segment they will address.
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