“Commune is about coffee and conversations,”shares Rosario “Ros”Juan, Commune owner. “Our main advocacy is Philippine coffee, and we’re called Commune because we are a place for people to get together.”
Before establishing Commune, Ros was immersed in social media and community management, and the people that she communicates with online would also like to meet up in person. “That’s what Commune becomes for them – a hub and meeting place for communities,”she says proudly. Ros has been involved in the coffee industry for over ten years, including managing a café in Shanghai for four years. Her experience and exposure overseas as well as her love for travel inspired her to put up a café and bar that also serves comfort food.
She decided to offer home-cooked Filipino food because in the café’s location in Makati City, these are rarely offered. “I wanted to fill that need at a reasonable price because personally, that’s what I would look for,”explains Ros. “There are foods that you may want to try every so often, but home-cooked Filipino food is no fail. Whatever your mood is, if you’re served Filipino food, you’ll feel good. So we decided to offer Filipino food,”she says with a smile.
Commune occupies a two-storey small building. On the ground floor is the café that also ser ves light meals, including all-day breakfast items like longganisa (Philippine sausage or chorizo) from different regions in the Philippines, and adobo (chicken or pork stewed in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, and bay leaves), a Filipino dish that never goes out of style. This month will see the opening of a 40-seater dining area next door to separate the dining area from the café area. This will give the café a full coffee aroma and enable them to expand the menu to include lunch and dinner for an entire dining experience.
If the local coffee and home-cooked food are the “heart” of Commune, the events place on the second floor is the “soul” of connections and conversations as well as creative space with events such as calligraphy, watercolour workshops and meet-ups of social media communities.
The entire space features everything Filipino. The pastries are from a local bakeshop and most of their vegetables are sourced from their family farm. Even the furniture and decors are all manufactured locally. And of course, the coffee that they ser ve is 100% Filipino, coming directly from coffee-growing areas such as Kapatagan in Davao, Mount Matutum in South Cotabato, Mount Kitanglad in Bukidnon, and Benguet, among others. “I always takes pride in telling people that ’you’re having Philippine coffee that’s grown here’,”says Ros.
The Philippines is a coffee drinking nation. “We actually have a strong coffee culture because we have been producing coffee since the 1800s,”explains Ros. “We’re only different with other countries in terms of our culture and how we consume our coffee. While other countries are more sophisticated in their understanding of coffee and too particular with coffee details, for Filipinos, it’s a simple joy”.
