Bagani director, wushu champ battles fears in food business

Sometimes, one simply has no other choice but to succeed.

Lester Pimentel, chief executive of several companies, including units that operate Rice in a Box and Wangfu chain of restaurants, knows this too well.

The entrepreneur—and director of the Bagani fantaserye on ABS-CBN—recalls those difficult days when he was 24, married for two years with a toddler and newborn son and a paltry P100,000 in his savings account.

Pimentel, a champion wushu athlete turned martial arts stunt actor and director, would have wanted to stay in sports, but he knew that a career in the field would not decently feed a family of four. Plus, a world championship medal was not going to be of any use in an action film industry being brought down by piracy.

And so he entered the new competitive field of business, using all of his savings from his earnings as an athlete, plus some loans from parents and friends, to open his first food stall selling rice meals served in a box at Masagana Citimall, a small community mall in Pasay.

He also entered the field armed with what he learned at the feet of his father, who had a specialty hardware business in Chinatown. There, he developed his approach to business that he described as “very Binondo”: “Fill a gap, serve a need.”

But immediate success in the field of business was not to be.

“Nobody would buy. It lost money every month for the first six months. But for some reason, I did not decide to close it down,” Pimentel tells the Inquirer.

And good thing, too, because the market eventually gravitated toward his humble stall that boasted of quality Chinese food at affordable prices.

Fast forward to today and that small stall has led to a chain with over 200 stores around the country. Along the way he also expanded to Wangfu, a more upscale chain serving Asian favorites such as chicken rice, laksa and bento meals; and Wangkee, a dimsum restaurant.

Plans are underway to also enter the ramen market in partnership with a Japanese company that will help it sell ramen at fast food prices.

That he did not give up despite the painful doubts over the viability of his food concept and the fear over losing what was left of his financial resources he credits in part to his extensive and rigorous training in the martial arts.

“Growing up in a martial arts community has taught me to be resilient from a very young age. The daily training we endure requires us to be physically tough and mentally persevering in all the tasks we need to complete. These tasks are focused more on mental toughness than the physical,” says Pimentel, whose father and older brothers were likewise respected names in martial arts.

Pimentel started intense martial arts training as a child. And for the most part of his childhood and teen years, he was part of the Philippine wushu team that competed in international competitions.

Over his career in competitive sports that lasted from 1988 to 1995, he tasted both the ecstasy of victory and the agony of defeat. Among his wins are the bronze medal during the 1991 SEA Games and gold in the 1995 World wushu championships.

“I think this exposure to martial arts has made me a fairly good problem solver, both in the industry of film and television and food entrepreneurship,” says the 43-year-old director, whose early works included being an action/fight choreographer in projects like Panday, Pedro Penduko and Wansapanataym after meeting ABS-CBN’s Malou Santos in 2000 when he worked on a Star Cinema movie.

The two industries of food and martial arts may seem to have little to do with one another, but for Pimentel, they are inextricably intertwined.

Pimentel shares he traveled frequently as an athlete, mainly in Southeast Asia and was exposed to the food, culture and way of life of the countries he visited. It also helped that he grew up in the family shophouse in Binondo, the Philippines’ Chinatown where food and wushu are serious endeavors.

The travels continued even after he stopped competing and became a coach for the Philippines’ official wushu team. He would train world champions such as local mixed martial arts hero Eduard Folayang.

Then he broke into the entertainment industry when he became a martial arts performer here and in Singapore, China, Malaysia and Hong Kong, thus further deepening and sharpening his food sense.

Then in 2012, he met Ace Wang in Singapore, a fellow stunt actor who will later become a friend and partner in various business ventures, from Stunt 360, which supplies stunt/action requirements for television, film and advertising, to Binondo Food Corp.

The plan of Binondo Food Corp. is to develop other brands that will fill the gap in the crowded Philippine food industry.

“For [Rice in a Box], we are continuously growing our branches all over the ground. Our target is to open 500 branches in five years,” says Pimentel, who dedicates three days a week to filming and another three days for his other businesses, which also include Cole and Ash, a seller of high-end office furniture brands; and Steinberg Industries, which provides window and door solutions.

For Wangfu, which has seven branches so far, new township developments are being built by real estate companies and the demand for authentic and affordable Chinese food is growing. The plan is to open branches in these new townships and malls.

Pimentel, who now has five sons aged 10 months to 21 years old, says he has been through many pains and failures, to the point that he once thought it was his destiny to fail in both sports and entrepreneurship. But perseverance and hard work and an unwavering belief in the qualities of their products eventually brought fortune over to his side.

He believes Filipinos with the same drive can likewise succeed.

“I have so much belief in the Filipino. There is so much potential that is waiting to be tapped. I want to help bring it out by sharing what I know—my skills, my passions and the lessons from my own personal journey of bouncing back in spite of challenges and drawbacks,” he says.

“We are resilient and destined for greatness,” Pimentel adds.

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