People start a business for various reasons--some simply to support their family, others to earn their first million. Antonio "Tony" Sevilla, 70, former chairman of Unioil Resources and Holdings Co. Inc., works in order to rest.

Indeed, Sevilla's newly opened cafe, Hacienda, is what he calls his rest house--and it's one that's close to his home at the Valle Verde Subdivision nearby. Located on the ground floor of the Transcom Building at Frontera Verde in Pasig City, the place is suffused with the aroma of coffee and comfort food from various regions of the Philippines.

Hacienda also offers the visitor a time trip of sorts: it has an old-style turntable that plays vinyl recordings--popularly known as LPs for "long-playing"--from Sevilla's album collection, among them old-time hit songs by Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. The chandeliers and artwork that complement the quaint decor of the place come from Sevilla's ancestral home in Bulacan.

Hacienda had its roots in an earlier business started by Sevilla, the Philippine Mountain Coffee brand. Both are in keeping with his business mantra of concocting something different but one with a universal appeal.

"I don't want to copy a recipe, but I want to put a piece of me in it," he explains. For this reason, it took him quite some time to find the "pet business" he wanted--something that could be personally enjoyed as well as given as a gift to both Filipinos and foreigners.

That pet business is coffee, and Sevilla says he had chosen it because its taste is never foreign despite its being always unique based on its place of origin.

Over five years ago, even as he was still perfecting the production process for the Philippine Mountain Coffee, he started test marketing it by selling directly to friends. His brand, sold in packaging designed by his brother Ed Sevilla, a tai chi instructor, established a unified position for four locally grown coffee varieties from as many growing regions: Tagaytay Baraco, Kalinga Gold, Kanlaon Blend, and Malaybalay blend.

Sevilla further differentiated his coffee from the other coffee brands by using a charcoal-roasting process that, done an hour longer than usual, purges the coffee's acidity. His assumptions about what good coffee should be were soon proven right. Balikbayans (comebacking Filipinos) and government officials liked Philippine Mountain Coffee so much that they began giving it as gifts to their friends and even to foreign diplomats .

In September 2005, when the shopping and entertainment complex Tiendesitas opened in Pasig City, Sevilla put up a coffee stall there. He did so because he thought that his product had a natural fit with the various other establishments selling native products. In October 2008, Sevilla opened Hacienda at nearby  Transcom building with P3 million in capital, and with a staff of 14.

Sevilla is a very patient person with a strong research orientation. Coming from a family with a tradition of making its men the king of the kitchen and with a penchant for holding large parties, he has been strongly hands-on in developing the menu for Hacienda as well as in decorating the cafe.

In particular, from an old cookbook of American wives living in the Philippines, he had discovered a recipe for a coconut ice concoction that he now offers in his cafe. He also used materials from dismantled old houses to give the cafe its stylistically antique ambience.

Because he considers Hacienda his "vacation" business, Sevilla usually has lunch and dinner there with his wife Susie Calvo Sevilla. This is how he ensures that the food served by the cafe tastes the way he had envisioned it. He says that by seeing how his dining experience could be made better every time he visits, he is able to come up with even more exciting dishes for his cafe.
Sevilla says that Hacienda truly keeps him busy, a business that perfectly fits his idea of a "restful" retirement.

HACIENDA
G/F Transcom Building,
Frontera Verde, C-5, Pasig City
Telephones: (02) 517-1516; (02) 633-2059