SHE found the formula for a promising business venture: Her cooking, her siblings interior designs and cake designs.
It was teamwork for the Crisostomo siblings – Therese, Louise, Nhiel — as they set up Kusina Habana, a catering business spiced up with selling cakes and pastries.
Persis Bantugan, who now manages the catering business, said two years had passed and Kusina Havana had since grown with more employees and more clients.
Therese Habana, the owner, is also based in Colorado, USA. Despite the distance, she still sees to it that the company continues to grow.
Aside from teamwork, Therese made sure that the catering packages were flexible for their clients.
They were free to choose what food they wanted to be served for their parties.
“We have a set package and we show them a wide range of food options that they can select for their appetizer, main course, side dish and desserts as well as the drinks,” Bantugan said of Kusina Habana’s service.
Kusina also offers personalized cake designs for clients like fondant cakes with miniature dolls on top of the cakes as accent or a cake shaped into unconventional shapes.
“We can do that because we have a cake architect Nhiel who really studied cake designs and who really loves making different unique designs for cakes,” she said.
For a wedding package, rates could start at P30,000 for 30 heads and P200 per person for additional guests.
While Kusina Habana serves a lot of wedding events, they also serve other events for corporate, birthdays, debut and many other events.
Kusina Habana only employs five fulltime people now including the owner who coordinates with the four Cebu-based staff through online conferencing every week.
“We can however cater to many events because we also maintain a pool of waiters that we call during events,” Bantugan said.
In keeping up with innovation, Kusina Habana also tries to tap all market segments and cater to every opportunity that they can get through their website.
“We accept online booking of our services even from people outside Cebu like abroad. They can order cakes and any of our products even a catering services online and just specify where we’ll deliver their orders and services,” she said.
Still two years old, Bantugan said the company is still growing and still learning a lot from older companies who have already made a mark in the industry.
“We continue to get fresh ideas so that our customers will not get bored with our services. In terms of our cooking, Marissa Otadoy who is our cook is taking many food trainings so that we can develop more dishes for our menu,” she said.
They also plan to promote their pastry products which are their specialty.
“We are now offering dessert buffets as part of our services like candy bars for parties at only P5,000 only. You can already choose and customize which desserts to include like fruits, tarts, custards, cupcakes and more,” she said.
Kusina Habana currently occupies a space at the second floor of BTI Arcade along Gorordo Avenue, Cebu City. They accept orders for cakes and other products that people want to order instead of getting a whole catering package.
Kusina plans to open a cafe in the future where they can also display their ready-made cakes and other pastry products.