A NEW cafe and coffee solutions provider has recently opened its doors to coffee lovers and budding coffee entrepreneurs of Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro City.
Lamp Lighter Cafe, located along Sayre highway in Alae, Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon, was established on November 30, owned by the couple Angeli Veronica Sarmiento and Miko Sarmiento.
The cafe, named "Lamp Lighter" due to the owners' fondness of the Lamp Lighter Bar in Canada, offers a variety of drinks and desserts which are very affordable.
"We want it to be average priced. We don't want people to pay a P180 for frappuccino. We want people to pay P140 max," Angeli said.
Coffee lovers can enjoy their two shots of espresso in every cup of choice of cappuccino, latte, flat white, Americano, Americano misto, long black, and cortado.
They also have coffee chillers such as Vanilla Espresso Chiller, Mocha Chiller, Chocolate Chip Espresso Chiller, Vanilla Cookies Espresso Chiller, and Matcha Green Tea Espresso Chiller, among others.
Non-caffeinated chillers includes: Vanilla Chiller, Dark Chocolate Chip, Caramel Vanilla, Oreo Caramel, Cookies and Cream Vanilla, Strawberry Mocha, and others.
The coffee chillers and non-caffeinated chillers all cost P140 each.
"This is quality ingredients. Our own coffee, we roast it, our own products, our menu, and our own recipe basically," Angeli said.
"So you're tasting something that's made with love," she added.
Miko, Angeli's husband, is the one adept in preparing the drinks behind the bar while Angeli is in charge of marketing, planning, customer service and training their staff.
Lamp Lighter Cafe also serve desserts such as bars and cookies, supplied by Mercedes.
"Aside from the drinks, we really want to focus on desserts, cause we Filipinos love desserts with our coffee, it’s a good pairing," Angeli said.
According to Angeli, their cookie skillet, still from Mercedes, is the one thing that is not available in Mercedes stores but is available in their café.
Angeli also assured that their staffs are well-trained as customer service is one of their top priorities.
"Customer service is number one, it’s really important. We're training them to think beyond what's in the book," Angeli said.
"We really also want to focus on our staff because they're the brand of our business, so we really trained them in customer service," she added.
The Sarmiento couple also officially started the operations of the Mindanao Green Mountain Coffee, a coffee solutions provider.
Mindanao Green Mountain Coffee is one of the distributors in Mindanao of Allegro Beverage Corporation, providing the industry preferred espresso machines, brewers, coffee beans, syrups, sauces, and teas from around the world.
"Because the CDO (Cagayan de Oro) market is growing, it’s getting busier so people like Starbucks and Krispy Kreme, and the like are having a hard time with the transportation in Manila or Davao. Now that we're here, it’s easier for CDO businesses to just come here or we deliver, service repairs, and all that," Angeli said.
The base of operations of Mindanao Green Mountain Coffee is in Lamp Lighter Cafe. As such, starting coffee entrepreneurs can visit their cafe to look at their machines and coffee supplies all the while enjoying a cup of hot coffee or a glass of their chillers.