AT 23 years old, Rolandrei Viktor “Zark” Varona opened Zark’s Burgers in 2009—pouring his hard-earned money from working overseas in the kitchen of a cruise ship—to open his dream restaurant at a modest 15-seater space along a university avenue in Manila.
Equally important while working on board the ship was his objective to get a hands-on learning on industrial systems, which he knew very well he needed to realize his dream.
“It was my dream to open my own restaurant when I was in high school. At that time, I was inspired by the success of the LJC group. Since I grew up in the Malate area, I was quite familiar with the brand,” Varona told the BusinessMirror in a recent interview.
The dream started when he enrolled at the Philippine Women’s University to pursue a degree in hotel and restaurant management. After graduating at 19 years old, he found work at the Outback Restaurant. He found the working stint at Outback very fruitful as he was able to learn the ropes on how to build his dream project. With solid training from the Bistro Group of Companies, he was “lured” by a cruise ship to work as a chef in the US.
At 21, he had the opportunity to observe all the concepts and trends in the different parts of the country. After his working stint in the US, he returned to the Philippines and started to implement his roadmap of putting up his own restaurant.
Varona’s initial step to becoming a restaurateur was acquiring a noodle house franchise fizzled out because of the seasonal demand of the offering as it was only strong during the “ber” months.
The concept behind Zark’s Burgers came when he was strolling on Taft Avenue across De La Salle University-Manila looking for ways to rebound from the first unsuccessful endeavor. While walking along the area, he observed there were no other burger restaurants offering casual dining.
The only burger joints present in the area were the main fast-food giants operating on a national scale. He saw a window of opportunity and decided to open his own casual dining burger restaurant.
Varona brought in his creative cooking skills that gave birth to Zark’s Burgers, a new choice of burger sandwiches that wasn’t fast-food nor pricey gourmet, but fresh, huge, and great-tasting and for price points that were saleable and accessible. He pictured a casual dining burger joint, which he noticed was lacking in the market. “We positioned Zark’s Burgers as a B-C market brand,” Varona said.
Before the plan to put up Zark’s Burger got off the ground, Varona recalled he had to borrow additional capital from his mother, journalist Inday Espina Varona, to replenish his capital. “My mother gave me an all-out support by lending me money as capital,” Varona said.
After five months, he was able to pay his loan from his mother.
The first branch was a success as word got around as students and enthusiasts alike were soon flocking to the site to get a taste of the new burger-dining restaurant offering a new take on burger sandwiches, and for affordable prices.
It was a one-man show for Varona with him working as cook, manager, and HR, and everything in-between, until its 7th outlet in 2012.
At this point, Varona realized it was a challenge to manage a multi-branch operation. As a self-taught entrepreneur and manager, Varona thought it was high time to acquire professional help to expand further and scale up. He invited his former colleagues in the industry and asked them if they could help him manage and professionalize the whole system.
With a team ready to support him towards the company’s growth, Varona was able to expand as Zark’s company-owned outlets number 20, while franchise-owned outlets are at 40 today, while four more are set to open within the year.
Zarks’s started franchising in 2018 and many expressed interest to get their own franchise of Zark’s. But Varona remains cautious since franchising is not the main motivation.
“The main goal is to build the brand. When we reached 20 stores that was the time we opened it for franchising where the system was solid where the logistics and commissary were in place,” Varona said.
“We are not a fly by night casual dining franchise. We learn from other’s mistakes, while we study and emulate the best practices of the established restaurant groups,” Varona added.
During the pandemic, Varona pointed out that food delivery was not the main challenge for Zark’s, but rather to remain a standout in face of competition.
So business continued to flourish as Varona was able to open four more company-owned stores. “We’re also taking this opportunity to scale up and get more attractive locations. As an entrepreneur, you still need to look for new opportunities despite the crisis,” he said.
In only 10 years, from its 2009 average daily sales of P20,000 with Zark’s hands-on operations backed up by two assistants, Varona has grown the business to reach P650 million in system-wide sales in 2019, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of P42 million.
His move to re-strategize during the pandemic defied all odds and resulted in positive bottom lines, with EBITDA of P15 million.
Overcoming the difficult pandemic years only boosted his team’s morale. As of today, only three of all the stores have not gone back 100 percent to their pandemic sales.
The business is on target this year at P850 million in system-wide sales, with EBITDA of P70 million
Varona has been recognized for his early endeavors and has received quite a number of awards and citations. Further, he is an Endeavor Entrepreneur, a global ecosystem of entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs that help one another to scale up.
He received his mentorship in scaling up and was awarded a Harvard scholarship on the university’s scaling-up entrepreneurship program in 2019 just before the pandemic hit. He executed the learning he received here when business was rendered difficult by the global health crisis.