
Angel’s Pizza franchisee Sherimae Sy-Tang shares how franchising jump-started her food venture.

When you’ve gotten so tired of the usual eight-to-five job for so long, what can you do about it? Of course, one could start a passion project, take a long break, or explore different employment options. For Sherimae Sy-Tang, she realized that working the daily rat race and traveling four hours back and forth to her home and office daily just didn’t fit the bill anymore. Plus, with a family to care for, it certainly ate up precious quality time with them. She then thought of the possibility of establishing her own business to be able to manage her time.

However, she was quite wary since starting and running her own business was all new to her. Knowing this risk, she thought of franchising. Consulting with her husband, they zeroed-in on Angel’s Pizza from the Figaro Coffee Group (FCG) since this was a small but growing pizza brand which they were already quite fond of.

According to Sherimae, “It was definitely easier to franchise than to set up a new business, since I didn’t know where to begin. With Angel’s Pizza, they were a small yet established brand with the proven system in operating chain stores. With streamlined processes and guidelines from the franchisor, we felt assured and confident the franchise would work and be sustainable. FCG even helped me learn the basics and complexities of the pizza business model. This included SOPs for ordering supplies to tracking inventories and costs, as well as managing store operations and employees.”

With more than 27 years of being in the F&B industry, franchisees are assured of an established backbone support system encompassing supply, brand-building, operational systems, menu and products, software, training, and marketing. According to FCG’s Chief Operating Officer, Mike Barret, when operating a cafe or restaurant, “It needs very close monitoring to make sure that optimum product and service quality is always maintained, inventory management is in place and the store team is well-trained and equipped.”
From starting her first Angel’s Pizza branch in North Caloocan, Sherimae and her husband have since gone on to open their second branch in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, with much success, and continue to look for more opportunities to further expand their flourishing food venture.