BLUGRE, the home-grown chain of coffee shops that Davaoenos learned to love and feel at home with, started off with a new concept for their Matina Town Square (MTS) branch with the soft opening of Blugre Nights on the second of the coffee shop Sunday, March 12.
With different concept coffee shops mushrooming in different parts of the city, Angela Diana delos Santos, franchise owner of Blugre Coffee at MTS, together with her husband, thought of a way to innovate and to be original but still keeping in mind the existing patrons of their coffee shop.
It was early last year when she thought of the need to maximize the existing space on the second floor of their building.
Originally, it was just an extension of the coffee shop at the ground floor or sometimes it serves as a function room. With bars and restaurants around her that are usually more active at night, she noticed the influx of her customers are usually around 9 p.m. onwards.
Blugre Nights is a product of extensive research and months and months of convincing franchise officers Benjie Cuaresma and Gloria Cuaresma from Manila to step out of the comforts of coffee and innovate with wines and spirits with acoustic band playing on the background.
“What’s good with wine is after you’ve been drinking it, you have a good sleep after. You feel relaxed and the conversation gets better as you drink more. That’s what we observed,” said Delos Santos.
She said Blugre Nights is perfect for group of friends who are looking for a place to chill out and talk, that is less noisy and a little more relaxed, adding that it is the reason why they opt to have an acoustic band playing for the ambiance.
She also noted how different they would be from the different bars around them which play booming-loud rock music.
“It’s because that is the established ambiance of the coffee shop downstairs. That is the same ambiance we want to establish at Blugre Nights as well,” she said.
Delos Santos said with the innovation they had, they were keeping in mind their loyal customers. The order of the coffees downstairs is separate from the orders of wines and spirits upstairs just so the coffee shop customers with children wouldn’t need to have people drinking at the next table if they don’t want to.
“We have different kinds of spirits: vodka, scotch, rhum, brandy, everything. We have everything. We also have local and imported beers,” delos Santos said. They also offer different kinds of cheese, cold cuts, breads, and crackers to go with the wines and spirits.
Blugre Nights is already open to everyone from 6 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. For now, the same concept to be adapted to other Blugre Coffee branches in the city is still being studied but as Delos Reyes said they are hoping that this would be embraced by their existing loyal customers.