How Urbinas set up Vietnamese-Thai resto

It was a business born out of a need to have another offering to their Cafe Laguna restaurant patrons.

To date, Lemon Grass is one of Cebu’s best specialty restaurants that offer authentic Vietnamese and Thai cuisine.

Lemon Grass opened its doors in Dec. 28, 2007 at Ayala Center Cebu’s activity area.

Just like Cafe Laguna, it was something that everyone in the family put their strengths together and made decisions.

“Lemon Grass is the first restaurant that we opened right after Chef Raki graduated from the Culinary Institute of America,” said Jill Urbina-Viado.

Chef Raki is the brother of Jill, who opened Lemon Grass.

Coming from a family of food lovers, Viado said that all of them went to Vietnam and Thailand to study their food.

Viado said by studying they ate a lot of Vietnamese and Thai food, learned how they were prepared, how they were served and eaten and got to know the different ingredients.

Their effort was rewarded after more and more people started to patronize Lemon Grass.

They started with an investment of at least P10 million to open the first outlet in 2008.

“The first outlet had only over 60 seats capacity and we had 30 people hired to help with the operations,” Viado said.

She said that the decision to offer Vietnamese and Thai food gave their Cafe Laguna patrons the opportunity to enjoy the same quality of food and service but with a different cuisine.

“Vietnamese and Thai cuisine is also very popular among Americans and other nationalities so we thought of opening one here,” she said.

Lemon Grass dishes are prepared as close as how Cafe Laguna prepares its dishes, said Viado.

The Urbina family also sees to it that a complete set of dishes are offered in the menu.

“We also consider everyone in the family when we decide on which dish to offer because we want to position Lemon Grass as a place for the family,” said Urbina.

They include appetizers, soups, vegetable dishes for the vegetarian, fish and shellfish for the seafood lovers, meat and poultry dishes, curry dishes and noodles.

They also offer tea and Ca phe sua da or the Vietnamese coffee.

In 2009, the restaurant was moved to another location at the Terraces zone after their old area was made an Active Zone.

Viado said the move didn’t affect the business as more people continue to dine in their restaurants.

There’s always competition but the family is confident that people are already well aware of the quality of food and service their restaurant offers, said Viado.

“We see a lot of foreign tourists coming here and really have good things to say about our food. We continue to make improvements though to make sure that we always provide the best experience to our customers,” said Viado.

A big challenge the Urbina family encountered in the business is the lack of supply of able manpower for their operations.

“We really still don’t have much people already equipped with the right skills that is why we really train them. The problem is after they get thoroughly trained, they leave to apply in major resorts and hotels here,” said Viado.

Despite this challenge, Viado said the family kept pace with what the business needed and made sure that quality of their food didn’t get affected.

For their expansion plans, Urbina said the family was to offer franchises but they were selective of the applicants because they had to keep the quality of their brand.

“We are very selective. We want our franchisees to have the same passion as we do and we also check on the locations that they want the branch opened before we approve any,” said Urbina.

At present there is still no definite plan for a new branch of Lemon Grass.

“Lemon Grass kasi we need to locate it in a place where the market already has appreciation for Vietnamese and Thai cuisine kaya we cannot open anywhere,” said Urbina.

Urbina added that they will continue to build and strengthen Lemon Grass’ brand in the country and be ready when opportunity comes in.

Urbina said they will be also aggressively promoting the restaurant as a place for delicious snacks with the family aside from just enjoying lunch and dinner.