FromOurArchives: The family behind UP Diliman's Chocolate Kiss tells us how they came to be, and how they came to an end.
they didn’t know it would change their lives forever.
Everyone was caught off guard by the news, but also a tiny bit relieved, because hey, at least Chocolate Kiss would still be operating for delivery – the Devil’s Food Cake would still be within reach! However, a year later, the cafe announced that it would beand in August 2021, Chocolate Kiss finally blew its very last goodbye kiss.
In the 1980s, The Chocolate Kiss Home-baked Delights was incorporated. This was no longer just a hobby, but an official business now; Maline, who was a full-time accountant at the time, opened her kitchen to Alma, who was also her next-door neighbor. From there, the sisters worked flexibly and together. Business was doing so well, that the sisters were able to set up their first baking facility, with financial help from mother Irma.
It took more than a decade until Chocolate Kiss was offered their first “commercial big break.” In 1996, Maline and Alma, who were already well-known in their circles for their baking prowess, received an invite to bid for an empty coffee shop space at the University of the Philippines Alumni Association’s Ang Bahay ng Alumni building. “Upon seeing the size of the space, my mom knew that selling cakes alone would not be sustainable.
“My mom and aunt kept a good eye on what came out of the kitchen. They treated the dining room as if they were entertaining guests in their own homes. Their meticulousness worked, I suppose, because customers from all sorts of backgrounds visited, and kept coming back,” Ina added. It didn’t take long for the UP community to acknowledge Chocolate Kiss as “part of UP,” said Ina, especially since they were already very welcoming from the start. In less than a year after the opening, The Chocolate Kiss was being mentioned by campus publications and freshmen primers of not just UP, but also of Ateneo’s and Miriam’s. Newspapers also began hailing it as a “hidden gem” to check out in the Diliman area.
Chocolate Kiss’ UPTC branch received “great reception” once it opened on the third floor of the neighborhood shopping complex; it was strategically located along a corridor with heavy foot traffic. However, the struggle of “strong competition” took over in 2019, and the branch had to close down in May.
It was a decision “heavily guided by going back to their roots,” Ina said, as well as reviewing the finances. The café had always relied on a high volume of orders in sustaining its operations. The difficult decision was prompted by the losses already incurred since the start of the lockdown, as well as the prospect of not being able to operate at full capacity for an indeterminable period.
“This was truly the hardest part – parting ways with the people whom we’ve shared the most experiences with. Through easy and hard times, our employees had been with us, and it is by their contributions that the restaurant even lasted this long,” she said. The restaurant meant a lot to many people, and Ina knew that Chocolate Kiss became a safe space – a refuge – for customers looking for reliability, familiarity, and that feeling of home. Now that their “happy place” was gone, she knew what that felt like. “It’s natural to be saddened when we can no longer return to these places where we’ve had fond memories in,” she said.
“I had to learn to make changes and try more things at a faster pace, be ready to fail, and to not take anything personally, to just keep trying, and to not give up. All of these, of course, within the parameters of a sound financial plan,” she added.