When Be More Pacific opened its Houston location in February 2020, co-owners Giovan Cuchapin, Mark Pascual, and Roveen Abante watched their Filipino bar and kitchen take off. It was “killing it,” doing almost double the business of the established Austin counterpart.
“We thought, ‘This is it,’” said Cuchapin. “And then COVID hit three weeks later and shut everything down.”
However, after five years, the Heights restaurant at 506 Yale Street remains standing – even though the original Austin location closed just three months into the pandemic. In an industry where restaurants are struggling nationwide, Be More Pacific’s story offers lessons in resilience, cultural authenticity, and creative community building.
Cuchapin, a first-generation Filipino-American born and raised in Houston, started Be More Pacific as a food truck with Pascual in Austin in 2011. Their goal was simple: introduce Filipino flavors to people who’d never tried them.
“Filipino cuisine is pretty well unknown to the general community,” Cuchapin says. “We thought we’d start serving some of the stuff that we grew up with, that we love, and just wanted to share with everybody.”
After six years of late nights, brunches, and catering gigs, they opened their Austin brick-and-mortar in 2017. The Houston expansion followed in 2020, with Houston hospitality veteran Roveen Abante joining as a co-owner.
The outdoor patio at Be More Pacific’s Heights location offers open-air seating and a vibrant atmosphere. (Photo courtesy of Be More Pacific)
“About a year and a half after COVID, it picked up,” Cuchapin says. But the past year and a half has brought new challenges. “Restaurants in general are just not having the same kind of foot traffic. Everybody’s trying to figure it out. Everybody’s trying to survive.”
So what’s keeping Be More Pacific going when so many others have shuttered?
The Banana Ketchup Factor
Walk into Be More Pacific, and you’ll encounter something unexpected: banana ketchup. Made without a single tomato, this unusual condiment is made from bananas, brown sugar, onions, seasonings, and vinegar. It is a Filipino staple that mystifies first-timers.
“Everybody was like, ‘Man, what’s banana ketchup? I have no idea what this is,’” Cuchapin says. “And then they’ll try it, and they’ll fall in love with it. They’d put it on everything that we had on the menu.”
Today, a manufacturer bottles it using their recipe, and it’s available at the restaurant.
“It’s almost Sriracha-like,” Cuchapin explains. “You can put it in marinades, eat it with anything fried, or any kind of protein.”
The restaurant’s appearance on Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” in 2021 gave them another boost, though not the overwhelming surge such features once delivered in the pre-COVID era.
“It was a bump, but it didn’t help us how it would’ve helped us probably 10 or 12 years ago,” he said.
Karaoke and Culture
Perhaps Be More Pacific’s secret weapon is its embrace of Filipino culture beyond the plate. Two private karaoke rooms – seating up to 20 and 15 people respectively – stay busy most weekends. The restaurant also hosts a monthly $100 karaoke contest.
Guests raise a pair of cocktails at Be More Pacific, which blends Filipino flavors with a lively dining experience. (Photo courtesy of Be More Pacific)
“Karaoke, family time, eating big meals together is a very typical Filipino lifestyle,” Cuchapin explains. “We definitely wanted to bring in the karaoke rooms to the new location.”
The strategy works. “The karaoke rooms are pretty much usually booked on the weekends,” he says.
Cuchapin also launched a lumpia (popular Filipino fried spring roll) eating contest, inspired by the Fourth of July hot dog competition, during COVID’s early days. Cuchapin used it to promote other local businesses while driving traffic to the restaurant.
Staying Power
These days, Cuchapin lives in Austin but travels to his hometown two to three days a week to run Be More Pacific. Of the three co-owners, he’s the only active operator. His parents, who visit a couple of times a month for takeout or meals, are proud of what he’s built – especially after his professed early misdirection at UT Austin.
“The food truck and the restaurant were about something they have a connection with; they were proud,” he says.
In a restaurant landscape where survival often feels miraculous, Be More Pacific’s recipe includes consistency, cultural education, and giving people experiences they can’t find elsewhere. Sometimes that means banana ketchup on everything. Sometimes it means belting out karaoke with friends in a private room. Always, it means showing up every day.
“Consistency with our food, consistency with service, and just being kinda different with the karaoke, just a mix of that,” Cuchapin affirms.
It’s a recipe that’s working, one day at a time.