{"id":243559,"date":"2016-12-30T06:06:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T20:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=243559"},"modified":"2016-12-30T06:06:40","modified_gmt":"2016-12-29T20:06:40","slug":"delegance-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/delegance-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"D\u2019Elegance Caf\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"D\u2019Elegance<\/a>
D\u2019Elegance Caf\u00e9\u2019s timeless fa\u00e7ade as it prepares for the dinnertime rush. (Erwin Encinares)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Julieta Cunanan\u2019s arrival on Saipan in January 1985 became the start of one of Saipan\u2019s most successful Filipino restaurants\u2014D\u2019Elegance Cafe.
\nThe Garapan landmark has withstood the highs and lows of the CNMI economy as it continues to serve Filipino cuisine not only to Filipinos craving for home cooking, but to residents and tourists as well who have come to appreciate the amalgamation of Spanish, Chinese, and American food.
\nFor its sheer longevity and for keeping itself relevant despite Saipan\u2019s changing food fads and its people\u2019s discriminating palates, D\u2019Elegance Cafe is the Saipan Tribune\u2019s Small Business of the Year.
\nIncorporated on Nov. 15, 1985, and having a grand opening on July 8, 1986, D\u2019Elegance Cafe has been in operation for 31 years, with the primary objective of \u201cmaking customers feel at home and treating them as family; accommodate everybody to the best that we can; and serve food with a reasonable price that is affordable to everybody,\u201d said officer-in-charge Emily Cabrera, who is Julieta\u2019s sister.
\nJulieta and her husband Wilson are natives of Pampanga, a province in central Luzon in the Philippines. The province is a hotbed of delicious Filipino cuisine and the Cunanans were able to transplant Pampanga\u2019s native dishes to Saipan and serve it at their restaurant.
\nThe food and excellent customer service has become D\u2019Elegance Caf\u00e9\u2019s calling card these past three decades.
\n\u201cI think that is why customers keep on coming back,\u201d said Cabrera. \u201cWe concentrate on customer satisfaction a lot.\u201d
\nD\u2019Elegance Cafe serves mainly Filipino food for the numerous kababayans that are homesick and are craving for home-cooked delicacies known as \u201cLutong Bahay\u201d in the Philippines.
\nCabrera shared that D\u2019Elegance Cafe is now also making an effort to serve international food to encourage others to try out the place.
\n\u201cWe also target the Chamorros and the local people as well as Westerners, Chinese, and more,\u201d she said.
\nD\u2019Elegance Cafe just recently hired cooks that specialize in many different cuisines to expand their menu.<\/p>\n

Business moves
\nD\u2019Elegance Cafe and Best Sunshine International, Ltd. recently entered into an agreement, in which the latter pays for employee meals at a discounted price.
\n\u201cWe gamble with that. There isn\u2019t much profit, since it depends on how many employees eat here,\u201d she said.
\nAccording to Cabrera, about 400 BSI employees eat at the restaurant per day, which she says used to be about 500.
\nD\u2019Elegance Cafe has also recently extended their restaurant space, adding about six more tables in a room that used to be for guests that ask for catering services.
\nCabrera said that the extension was done to further accommodate BSI employees and to look into the possibility of a regular catering service.
\nCunanan is not only a business owner. Cunanan also used to be a teacher for the Public School System, teaching at Hopwood Junior High School for 28 years before retiring and later being re-employed at Mount Carmel School for two years.
\nPrior to her teaching profession, she also served as a waitress at a restaurant that has long shut down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julieta Cunanan\u2019s arrival on Saipan in January 1985 became the start of one of Saipan\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":243579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[1311,56,42,63],"class_list":["post-243559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-bsi","tag-business-3","tag-food","tag-philippines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}