The Outdoor Coffee: Cliché as it may seem, but you need coffee – the one “na kaya kang ipaglaban”, literally or figuratively. This story, on the other hand, is the opposite of the aforementioned cliché – instead, “kape ang ipinaglaban”. In this article, we share the story of couple Von Daryl Beliña and Maria Armsly Diamante Beliña and their business venture, The Outdoor Coffee.
To begin with, The Outdoor Coffee is, technically, kape with a view. The Outdoor Coffee is a unique concept featuring an al fresco coffee experience by the sea with a ‘mobile coffeeshop’ operated by the Beliña couple – available from 4pm to 6pm at the Dumangas Seawall.
Here, Von Daryl Beliña shares their story.
“So, we are Von and Maria Belina. We are a married couple. We’ve been married for a year now. I, Von, was in the corporate industry for 11 years and my wife was a sales representative for 6 years. Corporate employees for quite some time and was based in Cebu at the time when the pandemic hit us.
We had plans of going to Australia but got held up because of the pandemic. So much adjustment at work and, most of all, so much realization in my part. I decided to leave my job because of personal reasons, then I met a good friend named Paul Anzano the master barista of the The Coffee Mobile who started the Philippine pop up coffee culture. I asked him if he can mentor me and we became really good friends.
I got so involved into coffee and my wife Maria supported all that I did to really improve my skills in coffee brewing. I studied a lot of coffee brewing methods and recipes. My wife was let go from her job so now we are both unemployed. We needed to do something about it and decided to start our own business our own Pop Up Coffee Shop.”
Beliña also shared about their unique mobile coffee shop.
“My wife’s cousin name Michael Diamante a very talented mechanic and custom cars builder, helped us design our motorcycle cart. Her family is very supportive of the business. We invested our savings to this and we hope to really grow the business.”
Despite hesitations, the business had a successful first day.
“Yesterday me and my wife started our very first journey as street pop-up coffee shop. Selling happiness to everyone – “coffee”. It was quite challenging during preparation since technically this is the very first business venture we got ourselves into.
So there you go we went to our first location, one of our favorite riding spot at R5 Costal Road Zarraga Iloilo and told my wife that if we sell 10 cups I’m happy with that. Then came our first two customers, two men riding a motorcycle. You can see on their faces that they were quite amused and curious of what we are selling, hesitant to order, we suggested two iced drinks for them – one caramel macchiato and strawberry macchiato.
What happened next melted our hearts. The other guy kuya works for a fish pond and told us that it was his first time to experience and taste iced coffee. His words “Amo ni guro ang sa Starbucks noh, namit man gale amo ni. namit gd ya.” (Ganito ba yung sa startbucks? Ang sarap pala neto, sarap talaga).
“If we sell 10 cups, I’m happy with that.”
“We then went to our next pop-up location at Dumangas Seawall. Our friends and families, people we know all went there and supported our humble start-up. Everyone was enjoying their coffee while waiting for the beautiful sunset. Eighty (80) cups of pure happiness on our first day.”
The Outdoor Coffee offers the following beverages:
Mt. Apo (Php90), Ethiopian (Php110), Americano (Php60), Cappucino (Php60), Latte (Php60), Iced Coffee (Php110), Caramel (Php110), Strawberry (Php110), and Matcha (Php110).
Follow their journey on “The Outdoor Coffee” on Facebook.
