I was a college lecturer in a previous lifetime. It was then when my path crossed with this guy who stood out in class not just for his good looks but for the way he sat on his seat oh-so-quietly. I couldn’t possibly miss the most silent guy in class who slept through it almost the entire term! Just the same, he did manage to pass and even graduate on time. Oh, yes. There’s another detail that I would always remember him by: how his classmates would tease him for being the “ex” of a very popular actress who is now the other half of one of the country’s most formidable love teams!
I still recall that whenever I would join in the teasing, he’ll just very calmly say: “Wala lang yun, Sir. Puppy love lang yung sa amin!” I never doubted that story. This guy, after all, has the photos to show of being with the actress, who even as a teener already had a face that can possibly make the cut for being one of the world’s most beautiful.
Fast forward to last week, I, once again, bumped into my formerly easy going student who has now transformed himself into a successful young entrepreneur. No, he is still not your conventional business guy who would be donned in a suit, but the way he speaks now rings money. Big money.
Joselito “Lj” Santos, is now the proud owner of Stack’em PH, a new burger joint whose hole-in-the-wall operations speak very little of just how big the venture truly is in terms of sales and profits. A quarantine born business undertaking, it came into being after Santos decided to leave his regular job in a leading brewery firm at the height of the pandemic.
“Nagka-inuman kami ng barkada. Sabi ko, tara business na lang tayo. We decided to put our funds together, ten thousand pesos each. Ayun, nag-resign na ako the following day,” he recalls.
With friends, now partners, Isaiah Macaltao and Hans Zachary Bretana, the trio started operating all aspects of the business, from product development to actual preparation, cooking and sales, day to day, keeping the high quality of their burgers as a standard.
“Who doesn’t love a good burger? The three of us love really good burgers. That’s why we try to keep our patties as flavorful as possible, complete with all the trimmings that would make our product really special. Hindi naming tinitipid yung produkto. We even concocted our own barbecue and house blended sauces! To top it all off, we made sure that our products are reasonably priced,” Santos declares.
True enough, even with a generous serving of cheese, caramelized onions, pickles and all other good stuff, an order of the thick double patty set only costs P139.
No wonder, the three literally always have their hands full, accommodating orders that never seem to stop coming even during their limited MECQ operations. Macaltao, who is the brains behind the patty formulation does the cooking and grilling, Bretana focuses on frying and cashiering, while Santos has already mastered his vegetable chops.
“It’s all worth it, Sir,” he confesses. Sure, with the business now well beyond breakeven and is, in fact, more than a six-digit daily operation. Santos has more than made up for the career he gave up for this venture.
“A lot of people are now approaching us for branching out. We’ll see. We are trying to be careful on suddenly expanding, there are dangers to that. We’re definitely happy with our little garage experiment at this time.”
Given what he has achieved, does he still have time to catch up with his now very famous “ex”? “We still chat once in a while,” he admits with a giggle while chopping a batch of onions.
Do you think she’s proud of you? “I surely Hope, she is,” he winks, with the mention of the actress’ name.