Experience doing good with good food at Overdoughs Café

IN 2018, Francis Carl Reyes was looking for a concept for a food-related business. He researched on food trends in Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong and saw that rolled ice cream was becoming popular. He also realized that there were various kinds of doughnuts that were not being served in the Philippines, and he decided that he would introduce them.

With these two concepts in mind, Elait, which offered rolled ice cream and yogurt, was born on April 1, 2018. Overdoughs, a homegrown bakery that offered doughnuts, Mouthwatering Mini Chonky Cookies and other delicious pastries, was born a month later.

What also made his business unique was because Reyes offered employment opportunities to deaf persons. This was the result of an encounter he had with a deaf person when he was visiting a clothing shop when he was a teenager.

"There was this guy who approached me, but he was not talking. He was trying his best to really assist me, and it was then that I noticed that there was a name tag and the word deaf was placed there," he said.

Reyes felt this person was the "epitome of good customer service. No matter who you are, he is going to assist you. No judgement." That experience made him decide that he would employ deaf partners for his store.

"We put up wireless buttons or pagers on the tables. So, if customers need assistance, they will just need to press the button and each of our deaf partners has a wrist band that will vibrate," Reyes said.

Source: TheManila Times