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The Inspiring Success Story of El Poco Cantina Manila

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    - I think my personality
    doesn't really fit
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    the proper restaurant.
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    Good morning, mother...
    Just kidding.
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    We're ghetto tacos
    because I'm ghetto.
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    Tacos, boys and girls.
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    (laughs)
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    - Good morning! This is...
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    What's your name?
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    - Jason.
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    - Jason.
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    And...
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    - What's his job?
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    - What?
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    Prep?
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    His job's preparation.
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    And this is Myra, our cashier.
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    Myra.
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    And this is our chef, Chef Glo.
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    And no more.
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    And I am your server for today.
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    My name is Noki.
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    Actually, there's more.
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    Nalou, what's your role?
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    And this is Nalou.
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    - I'm an assistant.
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    - She's an assistant chef.
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    And this is our handsome
    Chef Ronnie.
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    Chef, look at the camera.
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    - If you were a dish at El Poco,
    what would you be?
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    - Burrito.
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    (laughs)
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    - Why burrito?
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    - Because it's chubby
    and yummy.
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    And this one is Aly.
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    - Hi!
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    - What's your role?
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    - Kitchen prep.
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    - Kitchen prep.
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    - You know, El Poco Cantina,
    when you Google it,
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    it literally means
    "the little kitchen,"
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    because of how we started
    back in 2019.
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    It was just
    a 10-square-meter stall,
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    or a kiosk of some sort.
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    And we only had six seats—
    it was so small
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    that we could literally high-five
    each other.
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    Every move we made was just,
    you know,
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    "Hey, this works, we can do it,"
    because we had no idea
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    how to run a restaurant,
    let alone open one.
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    Imagine, it was just
    a stall back in 2019,
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    and we already didn't know
    what to do.
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    Well, before we even had birria,
    the Carnitas Burrito
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    was actually our best-selling item.
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    And then when we started
    making birria tacos,
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    the Quesabirria Tacos
    with beef barbacoa
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    became our top seller.
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    But I think one
    of the real bestsellers
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    is our homemade tortilla chips.
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    Some people come here
    just to eat that.
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    But I’d still say the horchata
    is the best
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    because that’s my partner’s recipe.
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    Actually, I was really lost
    for a long time
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    before I found what I'm doing now.
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    I grew up in a very normal household.
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    Just a regular kid with dreams,
    but under the circumstances,
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    achieving them wasn’t that easy.
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    I said, "Ma, I always dreamed
    of becoming a Lasallian."
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    Honestly, it’s embarrassing to admit,
    but my mom had
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    to borrow money
    from a loan shark just
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    to send me to school.
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    I was really enjoying
    my time there—
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    until I reached a point
    where I didn’t even know
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    why I was there
    in the first place,
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    because I was always drinking
    and hanging out with friends.
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    Then I asked my mom,
    "Hey, can I stop studying
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    for a while?
    I want to find myself."
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    And in that process
    of searching for myself,
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    I didn’t even realize that I was,
    you know, depressed.
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    I was drinking every single day.
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    From drinking, it escalated
    to smoking cigarettes,
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    and then it just kept going
    and going—
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    I was in a downward spiral
    of vices, addiction, and abuse.
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    My wake-up call came
    when I almost died
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    because of all that.
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    I've met people who were going
    through similar struggles,
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    and for the first time
    in my life,
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    I felt like there were people
    who truly understood me.
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    I started appreciating
    the little things.
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    And I went back to school.
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    I finished my degree
    in Human Resource Management,
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    then started working
    as an HR personnel.
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    The reason I left my job
    was because my dad had
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    a serious accident
    that left him bedridden for years.
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    And that’s when I started thinking
    about what I really wanted
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    to be as a kid.
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    What did I really dream of?
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    And the answer was clear—
    I wanted to start my own restaurant.
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    Chef, my 377 rider
    is here, okay? Thanks.
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    104 dine-in, table 3 left.
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    The mixed order
    has been served, right?
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    Table 4, right? Thanks.
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    Does that come with extra plates?
    Can you check?
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    Hi, welcome!
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    Chef, I need an additional order,
    on the fly—
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    barbacoa soft tacos, please.
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    Thanks, guys! Take care.
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    When I made our first recipe—
    the one we knew was going
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    to be good, the one
    that would put us on the map—
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    that was our carnitas.
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    The very first version of it.
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    Boss, can I get your autograph?
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    Just your name and number.
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    Takeout, 1020, soft tacos.
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    Three pieces, small,
    barbacoa quesabirria.
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    Yeah, thanks.
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    After preparing it that night,
    I woke up my wife—
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    but I didn’t just shake her
    and say, "Hey, wake up!"
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    No, I made a taco.
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    I made carnitas, plated it
    with the whole setup—
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    salsa and everything—
    and then stuffed it
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    into her mouth
    while she was still half-asleep.
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    Then I told her, "This is it.
    This is what’s going
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    to put us on the map.
    This is our game-changer."
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    And then, on September 5, 2019,
    we opened the first
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    El Poco Cantina.
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    It’s nostalgic. Very nostalgic.
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    Yeah. That was our kitchen too—
    same setup they have right now.
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    I remember we used
    to hand-draw our menu
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    almost every single day.
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    Looking at where we are now,
    we never could have imagined
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    that this tiny
    10-square-meter space
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    would grow into 100 square meters
    with two branches.
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    It’s insane.
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    We started from this one little spot.
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    And it was just the two of us—
    no other staff.
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    Definitely worth it.
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    To determine whether
    a Mexican restaurant is good,
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    you have to judge it
    by its carnitas.
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    It’s like adobo in Filipino cuisine—
    every household,
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    every parent in Mexico knows
    how to make good carnitas.
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    Now, our biggest seller
    is the beef barbacoa,
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    which we use in our quesabirria tacos.
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    That beef takes about 18 hours
    to prepare.
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    We marinate it overnight,
    then bring it here
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    to cook every day at 12 a.m.
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    We braise it for
    about six to seven hours
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    using around 20 different spices.
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    Our birria is made
    as close as possible
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    to how they do it in Tijuana.
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    We use guajillo, ancho, garlic,
    onions, tomatoes.
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    For dried spices,
    we use about 13.
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    There’s a lot of cinnamon bark,
    cloves, and allspice too.
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    And we make our own adobo sauce,
    which is basically
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    the foundation of flavor
    for our birria tacos.
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    One of our best-selling items
    is actually our tortilla chips.
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    They were originally just trimmings
    from our tortilla prep,
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    but one time, some pieces
    accidentally fell into the fryer,
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    and when we tasted them,
    we thought,
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    "Wow, this is really good."
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    (laughs)
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    So we started making them
    on purpose and turned them
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    into nachos.
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    The meat we use for it
    is beef picadillo,
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    seasoned with lots of spices.
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    We also created our own
    taco seasoning mix specifically
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    for El Poco.
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    Then we add vegetables—
    cilantro, pickled carrots,
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    pickled red onions, sour cream,
    salsa, and all that.
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    It’s just happiness in a bowl.
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    When you feel like you’ve reached
    a certain high in success,
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    the first thing you should do
    is build a longer table.
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    When we built this business,
    we thought,
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    "Hey, we’ve given
    so many people jobs—
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    let’s create another one."
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    So we opened U-Belt.
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    This is our second branch.
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    This was our first attempt
    at expanding.
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    We specifically chose Recto
    in the U-Belt area
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    because we saw that
    our customers weren’t just from Taft.
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    We noticed a lot of students
    from U-Belt were coming in too.
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    It was easy to tell
    because of their uniforms,
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    so we decided,
    "Hey, I think U-Belt
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    is a great place to start."
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    This here is Frida.
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    She represents
    women’s empowerment in Mexico.
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    She’s a woman hero there.
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    And this place—our restaurant—
    is mostly run by women.
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    She’s the reason
    why we started the whole thing.
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    She’s the one who named El Poco.
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    She’s the one who suggested
    we sell tacos.
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    She even quit her job
    for this dream and built
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    the business with me.
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    So we owe everything to her
    when it comes to pushing
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    this idea forward.
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    And the kitchen
    has always been open like this
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    because this story isn’t just
    about us anymore.
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    El Poco grew
    because of our team.
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    We want them to be part
    of this journey—
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    from a tiny stall to two branches.
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    They’re the ones running
    the entire operation,
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    so they deserve all the spotlight.
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    - One, two, three, group hug!
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    - What kind of group hug is that?
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    But running your own business
    is never easy, I would say.
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    It takes so much from you.
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    Service, 191 for dine-in.
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    (laughs)
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    All right, brother. Enjoy! Enjoy!
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    And because it takes
    so much from you,
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    you get depleted.
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    But despite all the hardships,
    the exhaustion—
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    mentally and physically—
    you come into work,
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    see your team smiling,
    see your tables filled
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    with happy customers…
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    and it makes
    all the sacrifices worth it.
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    The beauty of life
    is you can always learn something
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    and you can always atone
    for the things you regret,
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    as long as you really choose
    to move forward.
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    And I think being
    a father is really
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    my greatest accomplishment in life.
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    Cheers to my partner
    and to my fiancée
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    for believing in me.
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    Who would have thought,
    you know, this lousy [ _ ]
  • 12:44 - 12:44
    would make it.
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    (laughs)
Title:
The Inspiring Success Story of El Poco Cantina Manila
Description:

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Video Language:
Filipino
Duration:
13:13
Marty Pabroquez edited English subtitles for The Inspiring Success Story of El Poco Cantina Manila Feb 15, 2025, 7:30 AM
Marty Pabroquez edited English subtitles for The Inspiring Success Story of El Poco Cantina Manila Feb 15, 2025, 6:27 AM
Marty Pabroquez edited English subtitles for The Inspiring Success Story of El Poco Cantina Manila Feb 15, 2025, 6:22 AM
Marty Pabroquez edited English subtitles for The Inspiring Success Story of El Poco Cantina Manila Feb 15, 2025, 5:59 AM
Marty Pabroquez edited English subtitles for The Inspiring Success Story of El Poco Cantina Manila Feb 15, 2025, 5:08 AM

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    Marty Pabroquez Feb 15, 2025, 7:30 AM
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