Bravo, Cibo, bravo!

If you look closely enough, you will still see the scruff marks on the floor where the bar counter of the first branch of Cibo at Glorietta 2 in Makati used to be.

Cibo founder Margarita Fores could have gotten rid of them years ago, but she has not, as they are a welcome daily reminder of how far Cibo has come from that first outlet squeezed into an irregularly shaped retail space in 1997 into a chain celebrating its 25th year.

Along the way, Cibo—which means food in Italian—has brought Italian favorites closer to the Filipino palate, a remarkable feat indeed for a restaurant that was built on Fores’ desire to share with Filipinos her love for simple but healthy and flavorful Italian dishes.

“I felt very strongly about the concept, to bring authentic Italian dishes to the market. That means no overcooked pasta, no sweet Bolognese sauce, nothing American style. The balance needed to be correct,” shares Fores, who also took pains to make these favorites affordable and accessible in a modern but cozy setting.

Fores admits that she was “in a bit of a hurry to do her own thing” and put up her own restaurant even if she was not a certified chef. There were a lot of doubters, which was why she was given just a year to make something happen out of her space.

Her determination to bring her concept to life eventually silenced the naysayers.

The combination of authentic Italian cuisine and friendly prices proved to be irresistible to the market. Thus, the first outlet at Glorietta that was supposed to be only good for a year in 1997 is still in operation and much bigger than what it was, and was followed by 16 others, with two more to open before the end of the year.

“It was more of passion fueling profit,” she says.

That Cibo has managed to survive in the hypercompetitive food and beverage world Fores attributes to the care and attention put into not just on the food, drinks, service and the look and feel of the restaurants, but the not-so-glamorous back end too.

Staying afloat

As Fores stresses, it is far easier to open a restaurant than to keep it open.

To do that, she has to think beyond the food to include the other ingredients that make for a successful restaurant, such as keeping a watchful eye over the costs and the sales to determine what menu items are bringing in the revenues and which ones could be dropped to make way for others that have better potential of being sold to the market.

Fores readily admits that in the beginning, she thought she could do everything, particularly in the first 10 years when they were opening one branch after another as its chosen market was not too crowded.

But from that major milestone, she limited her role to the creative side and left the other parts of the business to the experts, including her brother, Oye Fores, who became chief financial officer and was instrumental in putting in place the systems and procedures needed to keep Cibo running on an even keel.

“On the 10th year we really decided to get more professionals who understand the business to make it sustainable,” says Fores.

The timing was fortuitous as the industry became more competitive and other concepts built around Italian cuisine sprouted.

Fores, however, saw it as a positive development as it meant that Filipinos had become more adventurous with their food choices, making it easier for Cibo to introduce new dishes to again excite its base, while keeping the core items on its menu such as the spinach dip, squash soup, pasta telefono, iced tea and tiramisu.

Over the hump

Cibo had regained its appetite for expansion and was looking to finally venture beyond Mega Manila when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, testing the Cibo organization’s creativity and resolve to march on despite the tremendous challenges brought about by the resulting public health and economic crises.

Fores recalls they held on to their 400 staff members as long as they could, even using their own resources to keep the operations going, as limited as they were by the mobility restrictions.

It was also during the pandemic that they quickly implemented innovations to bring in more revenues. These include the launch in December 2020 of Margarita Fores’ frozen pizza and sausages sold in groceries and supermarkets and the pivot to delivery platforms.

Good thing is that they had always been conservative in their finances, so they had no debt to worry about. The slow but sure expansion route that they chose was financed by their own earnings and investments from family members.

“All our growth was never from borrowed money. Fiscal prudence is our comfort zone. We prefer to gamble with our own resources,” says Oye, “There are always offers for joint ventures or for financing such that we could have been a 50-branch restaurant by now. But then, we have always been prudent. We are not hungry to grow the business just for the sake of growth.”

Fortunately, the worst of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic is over and with the easing of almost all restrictions, Filipinos are back in the restaurants and Cibo is taking advantage of the renewed appetite for dining out—total sales are now as much as 30 percent higher than the levels w the pandemic—by bringing to the market new concepts such as the Cibo food truck, to be followed next year by the launch of the Te Freddo iced tea and the Cibo line of dips and sauces.

She also gave in to the clamor to go out of Metro Manila, starting with Bacolod City. The warm reception to Cibo there has the family considering going to the other provinces.

Fores, who was named “Asia’s Best Female Chef” in 2016 despite having no formal culinary training, has indeed lost none of the sense of adventure that had pushed her to put up Cibo in the first place.

But she is now counting on more help from equally passionate members of the next generation and other trusted and competent professionals to chart Cibo’s next exciting course.