As the youngest among his family friends, Breganza was used to peeking in during these house parties and seeing people learn how to play a video game or set up turntables for a dance in the garage. That was exactly the type of intergenerational atmosphere he wanted to recreate at Seafood City. After all those treks between Vallejo and Daly City when he was growing up, it made sense for his set to pay homage to what he calls a “home that once was.”
It wasn’t until the day of the first gig that Breganza learned that Seafood City would be shutting down two checkstands, and that he would actually be spinning inside of the store during store hours. That setup changed everything. “I brought the loudest speakers, just to make sure I filled up the whole store,” he says, explaining how he brought his own equipment for the two-hour drive from Rancho Cordova, where he now lives. “The most important part for me was also for the employees to experience it, because they’re not built for the nightlife and they need the music. I’m giving them a piece of home.”
Jasmin San Jose, a cashier, rings up a customer in the middle of one of Seafood City’s late-night DJ parties. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)
For other Filipino Americans who came out to the Seafood City parties after they’d turned into a full-blown phenomenon, the supermarket blowouts felt like more than just another store promotion. On the night I visited, DJ Illyst from San José was one of the DJs on deck, and she had, of course, never spun at a grocery store during the year and a half that she’d been DJing professionally. “It feels like a family party. Doing all the line dances, the singalongs — there’s way more energy than going to the club,” she says.
Meanwhile, Steph Balon, executive director of the nonprofit Kapwa Kultural Center & Café, was there in the crowd with her nine-year-old son, Koa, for the second night in a row. The previous night, when DJ Cutso was on the turntables, Koa had felt the spirit of the song so intensely that “before I knew it, he was gone,” Balon recalls. Eventually, she found him on top of the checkstand, dancing his heart out for the cheering crowd. It made Balon think about her own childhood growing up between San Ramon and the Peninsula. She remembers how at family parties, everyone would dance in a circle, egged on by their aunts and uncles. Now, her son was getting to partake in the same coming-of-age ritual. Only it was on a larger scale — and at the grocery store of all places.
Four young children take a break from the dance party to enjoy a spread of Filipino street food in the Seafood City food court. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)
Now that the events’ popularity has spread all the way to L.A., Las Vegas and Houston, with flashier, more famous DJs, I ask Breganza whether he minds that Seafood City has taken his “dumb idea” and run with it. But Breganza says, “It was never about [claiming] it’s my terrain.” He’s just happy that the idea to spin a set in every Filipino enclave has taken off — with or without him.
“I want to work on a project where I can curate regional sound amongst the Filipino community,” he says of his ultimate goal. “What if the Houston DJs were playing chopped-and-screwed versions of OPM, or Chicago was playing house versions?”
For now, he’s focusing on the Bay Area, and instilling a sense of Filipino pride along with that early ’90s family party nostalgia. Starting with these Daly City supermarket gigs, he’s already done just that, turning a “dumb idea” into a brilliant marketing partnership — and also something much deeper. Whether it’s creating that perfect love ballad mashup for his set or grabbing the mic to entertain shoppers and workers alike, Breganza doesn’t want the important stuff to get lost in the virality of the moment, or competition between different Seafood City locations.
Alyssa Borland (front) dances during DJ Boogie Brown’s set. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)
As SF Kollective co-founder Dean Urriza recently pointed out on Instagram: “This is and always will be about community, and showing up for each other, not showing out.”
What Breganza hopes to provide, then, is that missing piece — that feeling of being among family, even with people you’ve never met. On the night I came out to Seafood City, I’d brought four cousins with me. We all grew up in Daly City when our Lola and Lolo immigrated from the Philippines in the mid-’80s. For us, the party was a chance to relive childhood memories one Filipino love ballad at a time — in true Filipino tradition, with plenty of delicious food to share with our neighbors and friends.