THE recently opened food park in Limketkai is getting all the buzz as “The Hive” has its customers hooked like bees to a honey with its variety of food and beverages.

The Hive Food Park, located in the Limketkai Complex, Cagayan de Oro City, started last June 16 of this year. A 1,600-square meter area with 30 to 35 establishments that sell food and beverages.

According to Nicole Mae Neri Aballe, proprietor and operations head of The Hive Food Park, the idea of having a food park in Cagayan de Oro began when they saw how popular food parks are in Manila.

“We saw the opportunity there in Manila, actually medyo sikat biya ang food park dadto (food parks are popular there). And I had a friend who owns a lot of food parks so I got the idea from him. And why not try it out here,” Aballe said.

Ever since the night market in Divisoria stopped operating, Kagay-anons have been looking for a place where they can have good food, drinks, good music and somewhere to just chill and hang out with family and friends.

Now with the appearance of The Hive, Kagay-anons have a new place where they can have fun while filling themselves with food of different varieties (Asian, Exotic, Local, among others), drinks (such as smoothies, liquors, cocktails, etc.), entertainment and feel at ease with the strict security in the area.

“We have security inside, outside and we have bomb sniff dogs. We see to it that it’s safe,” Aballe said.

The food park is open everyday from 5 p.m. until 2 a.m., an ideal place for those who like spending hours chatting with their barkadas until dawn.

“We see to it that we cater the Kagay-anons interest. If they like sugba, more on sugba sila... also varieties. Actually we screen every tenant before we approve to anything. So we see to it that the food is good, the food is affordable, the food is hindi mag (will not) clash with the other specialties here to also help the tenants. And the branding. We want this as festive as possible,” Nicole said.

Being the proprietor and head of operations of The Hive and a graduate of Business Administration major in Marketing from Xavier University, Nicole said she feels both blessed and pressured, as the place gains more and more customers.

“I really feel blessed and I'm happy as well as I'm kinda pressured because you know, we want to maintain it and at the same time we wanted to be like in trend and we don't want it to be like stagnant, we have to like keep the ideas coming. So that's why I'm pressured,” Aballe said.

“So from time to time, we plan out a lot like events, not just events but the whole place itself, we want it instagramable, we want it to be in trend,” she added.

Aballe said it was with the support from her family and friends, especially her brother, Peter Roa, and from God that she was able to handle the pressure that came from being the operations head of The Hive.

She also mentioned that they were able to talk with the Department of Tourism-Northern Mindanao on the topic of making the food park as one of the tourist spots in Cagayan de Oro.

The Hive Food Park, starting this Wednesday, will be starting something new to entertain its customers, a Trivia Night, according to the their event organizer, Jekky Rizon.

“We'll be starting the Trivia Night, every Wednesdays, 7 p.m. It’s like a fun quiz bee. The categories are random. The prizes are from the food tenants,” Rizon said.

“We want to invite all the Kagay-anons to come here, experience The Hive, try all our menus, food stalls here, and of course our bar,” Nicole said.