There’s something about the restaurant biz that calls out to Filipinos. In my many conversations with entrepreneurs, restaurateurs and aspiring entrepreneurs and restaurateurs, their passion for food always rises to the forefront. It’s a testament to how rich Filipino food culture is, that so many of us want to put up a restaurant or food business based on their special secret recipe or their lola’s iconic dish.
With such a deep and strong food culture, the food service industry in the Philippines is booming. Our appetite for new cuisine is bottomless, and the industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13% between 2022 to 2027.
Evidence of this growth is all around us. It seems that there is no end to the new restaurants opening almost every week. But before we all quit our day jobs to pursue that passion of starting our own cafe or launching “The Potato Corner of X,” just how hard is it to succeed in the highly competitive restaurant business? And is there a recipe for success?
Recently, I spoke to restaurateur David Sison, the co-founder of Mama Lou’s and president of the Restaurant Owners of the Philippines. He has such a wealth of experience in establishing restaurants — and, more importantly, succeeding with each. With Mama Lou’s he grew a humble Italian pizza parlor into a restaurant chain with 29 locations and five more on the way this year. Expanding beyond Italian cuisine, he is now venturing into Filipino, halal-certified, Cantonese, and even brewery concepts. His businesses include Famu, Nonna’s, Fatima Halal, Braubass, and more. David’s journey offers invaluable business lessons for aspiring restaurateurs.
LESSON 1: FAILURE IS A STEPPING STONE TO SUCCESS
David wasn’t always in the restaurant business. Before finding success with Mama Lou’s, he dabbled in various businesses, from an internet café to buy-and-sell ventures. These early entrepreneurial efforts, however, ended in failure.
Despite these setbacks, David remained committed to learning and improving. When he saw the potential in Mama Lou’s, he took a different approach, crafting a solid business plan and securing investors rather than simply borrowing money. His early failures taught him that business success requires not just passion but also proper financial planning and operational discipline.
LESSON 2: FINDING THE RIGHT BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
David attributes much of Mama Lou’s success to identifying the right market gaps. At the time of its expansion, there were few Italian restaurant brands offering authentic, high-quality ingredients at scale.
“I saw that there were not a lot of Italian restaurants that had scale. Many were focused on what was readily available rather than sourcing the best possible ingredients,” David explained. By emphasizing authentic flavors and consistent quality, Mama Lou’s carved out a strong niche in the competitive restaurant industry.
LESSON 3: THE IMPORTANCE OF PROFESSIONALIZING A BUSINESS
In the early years of Mama Lou’s, David recognized a critical challenge: inconsistency. The restaurant’s success relied heavily on the chef, leading to fluctuations in food quality. To address this, he applied what he learned from his Master’s in Entrepreneurship at De La Salle University — building standardized systems and processes.
“The pandemic really taught us to professionalize the business, to focus on the foundation, and to build systems,” David shared. This approach enabled the company to scale efficiently, ensuring that quality and customer experience remained consistent across multiple locations.
LESSON 4: PEOPLE ARE THE HEART OF THE BUSINESS
While food quality is crucial, David believes the real secret to restaurant success is people — both customers and employees. “Business is really all about life. It’s all about how you make people feel,” David said, citing renowned restaurateur Danny Meyer.
Mama Lou’s built its reputation not just on great food but on a warm, hospitable dining experience. David ensures that his team is composed of individuals who embody kindness, empathy, and optimism. To institutionalize this, he developed a hiring framework based on five “gifts of hospitality”: eye contact, genuine smiles, enthusiasm, welcoming hand gestures, and confident posture.
“When you scale so fast, you tend to compromise. You may get managers who can hit numbers, but if they don’t align with your values, your customer service suffers,” David emphasized. He learned that hiring the right people from the start is crucial to maintaining the company’s culture as it grows.
LESSON 5: STRATEGIC PLANNING IS NON-NEGOTIABLE
David admits that his natural inclination is to juggle multiple projects at once, sometimes leading to burnout for himself and his team. He learned the hard way that execution without a clear plan leads to failure.
“The lack of planning leads to stress. You cannot execute well if you don’t have a plan,” David noted. Before expanding, he conducted thorough market research, and it is this level of preparation that made Mama Lou’s expansion a calculated, strategic move rather than a leap into the unknown.
David Sison’s journey is a masterclass for Filipinos who want to get into the restaurant business. Entrepreneurs can learn much from David’s story: start with a strong foundation, invest in systems, and above all, prioritize people.
RJ Ledesma (www.rjledesma.com) is a Hall of Fame Awardee for Best Male Host at the Aliw Awards, a multi-awarded serial entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and business mentor, podcaster, an Honorary Consul, and editor-in-chief of The Business Manual. Mr. Ledesma can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. The RJ Ledesma Podcast is available on Facebook, Spotify, Google and Apple Podcasts.
ledesma.rj@gmail.com
