Seek life advice from anyone who’s been around the block once or twice and they’ll tell you, probably 10 times out of 10, that your 20s are made for discovery.

The third decade of your life is for failing, trying, figuring out what you want and don’t want, and racking up the experience that’ll help you shape your life and career. There is time, they say; live the most of your days to get just as much from them, especially if you’ve got talent.

And on that thread, some come to the charmed life more easily than others. One example is Jao San Pedro, a young artist who’s currently handling Del Unión as its general manager.

Jao San Pedro is quick to stress that she’s an artist handling a coffee shop with practically no F&B experience but you’d never figure it from the way Del Unión has quickly prospered.

Her role as the woman in charge of the San Juan, La Union hangout El Union Coffee’s satellite in the capital is a little extraordinary. She’s quick to stress that she’s an artist handling a coffee shop with practically no F&B experience—her background is in visual art, marketing, and fashion—but you’d never figure it from the way Del Unión has quickly prospered and been accepted as a new watering hole in BGC.

While it speaks to the experience of the crew running Del Unión and El Union Coffee, it’s also proof that San Pedro is capable of learning, adapting, and applying her organizational and management skills, as well as her artistic processes, to run a thriving business.

El Union Coffee's second act sits on the third level of Fully Booked BGC — El Union Coffee’s second act sits on the third level of Fully Booked BGC

“I’m a process-builder. I design processes for things to course through, and that makes the work easier. In a similar vein, that’s what I do for Del Unión—I see where the holes are and try to fill them in a way that makes sense to me,” San Pedro explains.

“It offers a new perspective since it’s my first time running a food and beverage business. I get to play, I get to experiment, I get to see real-life reflections of the process-building that I’ve been so consumed by in the development of my artistic practice,” says Jao San Pedro.

“I guess it offers a new perspective also since it’s my first time running a food and beverage business. I get to play, I get to experiment, I get to see real-life reflections of the process-building that I’ve been so consumed by in the development of my artistic practice.”

The skill and merit that got San Pedro this job is no small thing; after all, she had earned a grant from San Juan-based artistic residency Emerging Islands to just make what she likes, and that’s not something just any artist could win like that.

Jao San Pedro’s serendipitous road to Del Unión

It’s that particular artistic grant that led her to move all the way to La Union to make art. To contextualize her artistic background further, our first meeting was during her creative internship at Scout when she was only 17—her advanced schooling status allowed her to start college early at 15.

Since then, she has gone on to work with fashion designer Rajo Laurel, get a stint doing PR marketing for Anima Studios, and earn said grant all before 25. All before this moment today at Del Unión.

She chose the northern province because its popularity over the past decade made it somewhat of a transitory place—people are there, but very few are ever really there for good.

Jao San Pedro with Del Unión creative director Matt San Pedro

“I feel like no one’s ever fully a resident of La Union,” she says. “People come in and out, especially during the pandemic. I hit a point where I wanted to be in a place where people are so open because everyone’s in transition. And I guess, as a woman of trans experience, I felt really mirrored by that.”

And because San Pedro had chosen La Union to incubate her creativity, and the community in San Juan is tight-knit, she eventually found her way to a friendship with Kiddo and Amy Cosio, the people behind El Union Coffee.

The "civics" part of the name alludes to all the possibilities that Del Unión intends to craft in the future — The “civics” part of the name alludes to all the possibilities that Del Unión intends to craft in the future

El Union is one of the town’s enduring landmarks, a successful cafe that has become a point of pilgrimage for anyone enjoying the surftown beach, standing strong despite the area’s steady development.

“I hit a point where I wanted to be in a place where people are so open because everyone’s in transition. And as a woman of trans experience, I felt really mirrored by that.”

The Cosios planned to take the El Union brand to the capital, and they saw something in San Pedro that told them she could more than handle running an F&B business despite it not being her background. As she was exploring all her different options, she didn’t hesitate to take the offer.

From there, the work on Del Unión had begun, and by November 2023, San Pedro returned to Manila to open the cafe at Fully Booked BGC by the next month. It would take them until early 2024 to finally push through, however, but it didn’t matter—Del Unión quickly took off.

A feminine touch behind the scenes

San Pedro doesn’t just bring an artistic handle to Del Unión—she says that her vision is also to soften what she observes is a rather “masculine” atmosphere in the kitchen. In fact, she wants to subvert the dominant masculine air.

“I guess there’s this seriousness that comes with coffee, which I find honestly a bit funny,” she says. “It’s with anything, actually, even with art. There’s a seriousness that I kind of feel irked by. There’s a sense of hierarchy. That’s a very masculine approach to be constantly contending with—like, ‘Oh, I’m better than this person, I’m higher than this person.’ It never really appealed to me.”

Jao San Pedro's management approach goes against this "sense of hierarchy" that can sometimes plague businesses — Jao San Pedro’s management approach goes against this “sense of hierarchy” that can sometimes plague businesses

She attributes this mindset to her affinity for those in the fringes, gravitating towards those who may not have more in the workplace. “For me, it’s about flattening that gap of who’s higher than who, making everything quite linear, and seeing people for who they are and what they can offer instead of it being a closed case of seniority. I just don’t like that gap.”

“What makes me go on and on with managing is really the hope that I could impart some of what I’ve learned as a transwoman to people of all experiences,” she says. “That affords me hope, not only for the business but also across all lines.”

While she acknowledges that the hierarchy and seniority do matter in an entrenched culture, San Pedro wants to work to change this mindset, all because the rules that muffle voices and shackle people can do more to hold back progress and success that’s waiting to be unleashed.

“What makes me go on and on with managing is really the hope that I could impart some of what I’ve learned as a transwoman to people of all experiences,” she says. “That affords me hope, not only for the business but also across all lines.”

And that‘s something we’ll raise our cups of coffee to.