The iconic place of Gen Y has even ditched white for burgundy? a ?more passionate? color for its ?recommitment?
ON OCTOBER 30, one night before Halloween, Embassy club owners Erik Cua, Chef Fernando Aracama, Jon Herrera and Tim Yap received news they had long been waiting for. They were being allowed to reopen.

?Erik and I were talking. Hey, are we going to open? We asked each other. I said, hey, we never backed out of Halloween. We?ve been doing Halloween ever since,? said Yap.

It was decided. They were opening and they were opening in a big way?they were throwing a Halloween party. Putting together an event in just one night may sound impossible, but not when you?re the guys who own Embassy.

?We didn?t even have time to text our friends. It was really Twitter and Facebook that helped spread the word. Our party announcement got reposted and reposted.?

On the night of Halloween, the place was packed. ?By 11:30 we were full,? Cua said. ?We had around 2,000 people going in and out of the place.?

Yap said, ?It gave me such a great feeling. It was like, look at them, they?re having a great time, they?re happy dancing on the dance floor.?

Embassy had been closed for two months before that night. The Taguig city government shut down the establishment because of a stabbing incident.

Strong face

Aracama said, ?We still put on a strong face in front of everybody but what we were really worried about were the 200 people who work for us. Whenever we talked to the Taguig city officials, that was always part of our plea. We?re not greedy. We just really care for our staff.?

Yap added, ?These 200 people had no jobs for two months. That?s 200 families affected.?

Aracama said they tried moving their employees to their other businesses so they would still have a source of income.

Despite the setback, the four entrepreneurs tried to stay positive.

Yap said, ?This whole time, we never said, ?Woe is me.? It was always, ?What can we do to be better?? We?re very action-oriented. Whenever incidents happen, we ask each other not how we feel but what we can do to address the situation. We didn?t have time to panic or to worry, it was all to-do lists.?

?It?s always a lesson learned. You have to adapt. You have to stay positive. You just have to be very proactive about it. Maraming nakasalalay. It?s not about pride, it?s not na mayabang kami.? Aracama added.

Yap says the two months may have even been good for them in some ways. ?For two months, the nocturnal community was able to sleep. It was also a good two months for us to dig deeper and think about our priorities and how we want to better service our clientele. We spent two months thinking of how to improve.?

Tropical storm Ondoy struck while Embassy was closed. Its owners immediately opened the place for relief operations. ?We were a drop-off point for donations, we arranged distrubution of the goods, we were also cooking meals for the survivors here,? said Aracama.

Yap added, ?What?s amazing was our employees volunteered?even if they didn?t have jobs at that time, they wanted to help. Now that we?re open again, they?re back and they?re so eager to serve.?

Reinvention

Embassy SuperClub, which first opened in 2004, is being reintroduced as Encore. Cuisine, the group?s fine dining restaurant, is now Suite. Cafeteria, their comfort food haven, has kept its name.

Yap said, ?Five years ago, we were in the same place, discussing the opening of Embassy. It?s five years later and we?re back to step one. We?re opening Encore. Encore is French for ?again.? If we were mahinang loob, nag-give up na kami. Huwag na lang, Huwag na lang, we can do without these headaches. But we choose to have headaches because this is part of what we love to do.?

Security, naturally, was their priority in the reinvention of Embassy. ?We?ve always been compliant. We comply, we don?t complain. We?re the only nocturnal establishment that has security like a mall, like a hotel,? said Cua. ?From 50, we now have 90 CCTV cameras. We have 65 to 70 security personnel every night. We have metal detectors, K-9 units and our security checks will be more thorough.?

Aracama said, ?It?s never a business owner?s wish for bad things to happen. I think we?ve put enough security measures in place, suggested by the police and by the Taguig city government, and, of course, our own security management force.

A lot of other changes are to be expected. The group has said goodbye to Embassy?s all-white facade. The place is now painted burgundy. Yap said, ?From the white we?ve shifted to a red. It?s a recommitment. It?s more passionate. The color alone reinstates our recommitment to the community.?

The group wants to open up the club to a bigger demographic. Herrera said, ?We have new nights. We are going to be more diverse. On Mondays we?re gonna have modern ballroom dancing. On Tuesdays, the club is closed. Thursdays will be band night. We want to find up-and-coming bands. We wanna find the next talents. We wanna open the venue. We?re gonna host it with some rock stars. We?re building the community. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays are industry nights. We?re gonna have weekend bazaars on Saturdays and Sundays. We?re now positioned more as a venue and not just as a club. We want to make the clubbing experience more multidimensional.?

Ballroom dancing

Ballroom dancing and Encore may sound like a strange mix but not to its owners. Yap said, ?We?re calling it B at Encore. B can be ballroom, b can be bold. We?re modernizing it. You?ll be surprised at the number of young women who want to learn how to dance. If the ballroom dancing does really really well, we might add an extra day.?

Yap believes the new theme nights and concepts make perfect sense. ?Why did we put up a club? We don?t mean to be separatist. We want to be a bridge, we want to welcome other people, we want to let them enjoy music and meet other people. Even when people come from abroad, they come here and look for Embassy.?

The food they serve has also undergone changes. Aracama, the chef for all three places, said, ?Suite is actually a dessert bar. It?s always been Erik?s dream to bring a more massive dessert menu to Suite. We?ll serve the old favorites from before but we now have a more encompassing dessert menu.?

People who eat at Suite can expect a chocolate adventure for their palates. After all, Aracama is the man who invented the famous chocnut ice cream which he used to serve in Uva.

Revamped menu

Cafeteria didn?t get a name change but its menu was revamped. Aracama said, ?We added more Filipino dishes. We realized that while Pinoys love to eat burgers and fries, it?s still rice that they go to. We made the menu more Pinoy-friendly.?

In the club, pica-pica is served.

Encore officially opened last Wednesday with a big party. ?We invited people to come in twin outfits. Usually when people go out to parties, you don?t want anyone else to be wearing the same outfit. We like to take existing norms and twist them around and give it a 180 turn and have fun while doing it,? said Yap.

The four have bigger plans for the country?s nightlife scene. ?We?re building a new club in New Port across the airport,? says Cua.

Cua, Yap, Aracama and Herrera are used to working together. They also own Members Only, which is also part of the Embassy group. Cua, Yap and Aracama are part-owners of Tides in Boracay, Yap and Cua are part-owners of Manor in Eastwood, Cua and Aracama run MyThai Kitchen Restaurant and Herrera and Aracama have Trilogy and Canteen in Makati.

Aracama said, ?When the four of us sit together, you can?t split us apart. Between us, we have a language of our own.?

?Is it too presumptuous to say that the one word that comes to mind when I think of what we were before as Embassy and what we will be now as Encore is unsinkable? We came out more aware. There are bigger things outside this club. We strive to be a place where people can enjoy, we want them to know that they?re safe here, that this is a place that cultivates enjoyment and the celebration of milestones.?

Encore is located at The Fort Strip Fort Bonifacio Taguig City.