It is with good food that friends bond over with.
And this is exactly what brought eight friends together to open Cooee, the hippest new cafe in town.
Located right in the heart of Cebu City at the ground floor of Raintree Mall along F. Ramos St., Cooee offers hearty meals that include smoothie bowls, yogurt bowls, poke bowls, breakfast favourites, desserts, and healthy drinks.
The name Cooee actually comes from the Australian slang which translates to “come here.”
“Befittingly, that’s what we want for people and our patrons to continually do – to come here, to find comfort in our food and to share that experience to everybody else, just like what we did,” shared John Rey Guadalquiver, Cooee’s finance manager.
Among their bestsellers is the Big Breakfast Combo composed of favourite breakfast staples like waffle, bacon, sausage, egg, and pork ‘n beans.
Their Ohana Poke Bowl, a mix of avocado and salmon sashimi with carrots, cucumber, white onions and cherry tomatoes is also a hit; as well as the Acai Berry Smoothie Bowl which is a blend of acai berry, mixed berries, banana and yogurt, topped with granola, shaved coconut, mango, kiwi, and chia seeds.
Prices of their bowls and meals range from P125 to P245 while their drinks range from P95 to P150 each.
With most of their daily customers being students from nearby schools and universities, Cooee has made their prices reasonable while not compromising their ingredients which are freshly sourced from local markets every day.
“What truly sets us apart from our competitors is our drive to be innovative with our products. We bake, brew, blend, and juice. We made our menu very diverse because we know everyone has their own preference when it comes to food, so we don’t just offer healthy food but comforting food as well,” Guadalquiver said.
But Cooee doesn’t only satisfy gastronomic cravings, the cafe itself is a visual pleasure.
Even from the outside, Cooee screams of the tropical and vintage vibe of Cebu. The vibrancy of Cebu’s beach hues balances with the subtlety of vintage colors all over Cooee’s interiors — all meant to make guests feel like they’re in a familiar place and feel at home.
“IT ALL STARTED WITH FRIENDS”
Guadalquiver, an entrepreneur and travel enthusiast, oversees the overall operation of Cooee together with Benjie Layos who is the general manager.
Layos is a regular actor in Siddhartha the Musical which is the longest running musical play in Cebu. And it was through this musical that he became friends with Guadalquiver and the rest of Cooee’s team.
Jayneil Enriquez and Les Paul Pineda are in charge of marketing while Christine Fernandez is their operations manager. Their human resource manager is Joseph Kirby Moroscallo.
In charge of doing wonders in the kitchen are Margot Mante and Marianne Labay who are the head barista and head chef, respectively.
“The core and foundation of Cooee is friendship. This literally all started with our friends. Food was always something that would bring us together, like if there was a new cafe or restaurant in Cebu, we’d go there and bond. It brought us closer together,” Guadalquiver said.
“But of course, our schedules would always hinder us to constantly see each other, so we decided to start a cafe so we could spend more time together and share our love and passion for food,” he added.
Since some of them already had previous experiences of operating a cafe, there wasn’t much challenge in putting together Cooee.
But they admit that it was quite a concern to find a perfect spot to launch their venture. But fortunately, an opportunity opened and they were able to find a great space within the heart of the city.
While they are still new, the people behind Cooee have big dreams for their brand and they hope to do so without ever forgetting why they put up the cafe in the first place.
“We want our guests to come to our cafe with a purpose, which is to have good food and good company. We want our food and drinks to be conversational pieces. We want every visit to be memorable so they would want to come back and bring their friends,” Guadalquiver said.
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