Italian restaurant to open in Centrio

ITALIAN cuisine lovers in Cagayan de Oro would surely be delighted with the opening of Sbarro Italian Restaurant inside the soon-to-open Centrio Mall, believed to be the biggest mall in Mindanao.

Sbarro Italian Restaurant, famed for its best pizzas and other famous fresh Italian cooking, will be serving both foreign and local tourists and local executives late in October or early November this year.

The company is currently training managers at Ali Mall in Cubao and crew members in Davao, under Deric Espiritu, area manager for Mindanao.

Espiritu is also the store manager at Sbarro’s SM Mall of Asia and SM Megamall branches.

Sbarro is an international operator of Family Style Restaurants. The company began in 1959, when Gennaro and Carmela Sbarro, just arriving from Naples, Italy, established a Salumeria, otherwise known as an Italian delicatessen, in Brooklyn, New York. It was an exceptional showcase of authentic and fresh Italian fare - from freshly made mozzarella and homemade sausages to traditional Italian delicacies and desserts, all based on the Sbarro family recipes.

As they branched out to more locations and grew into delivery for family celebrations in 1967, Carmela "Mama" Sbarro gave a new twist to the business: a restaurant with a pizza area in full view of customers and a fast moving self-service style, with the same Sbarro family tradition of delicious, authentic Italian food.

In 1972, Pampanga native Jaime "Jimmy" Salvador joined the Sbarro business. Jimmy worked alongside the original founders and their sons, living and breathing the family brand. He worked in operations as a store manager, then ran the corporate commissary in Brooklyn, and eventually served as Sbarro’s first area manager.

In 1989, after 17 years of living in New York and working with the Sbarro family, Jimmy returned to the Philippines carrying the Sbarro brand with him. Along with Ma. Teresa Rodriguez and her family, he opened the first Sbarro Philippines branch at the Annex in SM North Edsa in 1990 — the first Sbarro in all of Asia.

Years later, Sbarro Philippines expanded to the different parts of the country and until today, it continues to satisfy the cravings of Filipinos with 25 branches nationwide and counting.