For David Sison, building a restaurant business did not begin with a perfectly laid-out plan. It started with a series of ventures, failures, and lessons that eventually led him to Mama Lou’s.
Today, Sison is the CEO and co-founder of Mama Lou’s Group Hospitality Inc. He also serves as its Chief Tasting Officer, overseeing recipes, research and development, and food tasting. While many call him a chef, Sison prefers a different description.
“I don’t call myself a chef. I cook,” he says. “But all the food, dumadaan sa akin. I do the recipes and I do the tasting.”
Learning Through Early Ventures
Sison grew up watching his father run a business, which shaped his own ambitions as an entrepreneur. Even before Mama Lou’s, he had already tried his hand at business.
While in college, he opened a small eatery with friends in Santa Rosa, Laguna. Later, in 2008, he opened an internet café. Both eventually closed, and he admits he was never able to repay the money he borrowed from his parents.
Those experiences, however, became part of his education.
His path to Mama Lou’s began while helping his partner, Crystal, with her family’s European restaurant. Sison saw potential in the food, particularly its thin-crust pizza and simple pasta. When the original restaurant closed, the family eventually transformed a house in BF into what would become Mama Lou’s.
He pursued his master’s degree in entrepreneurship while helping build the restaurant, using Mama Lou’s as a case study for many of his academic projects.
When One Restaurant Becomes Many
As Mama Lou’s grew, Sison discovered that success could not depend solely on the founders being present.
“When opening the second restaurant up to the sixth restaurant, actually maybe even up to the tenth restaurant, there was what you call the founder’s energy,” he explains. “But we are just people. People get tired.”
That realization changed how he approached growth. For Sison, a successful restaurant needs systems that can work even when the founder is not there.
“The success in one store is just a starting point, but it is not the proof,” he says. “As you expand, you have to write down how you do things so that the business is not dependent on you being there.”
For a growing restaurant group, he believes every stage brings a different challenge. “Scaling is a different animal,” he says. “Every stage is a different business.”
Consistency Is the Goal
As Chief Tasting Officer, Sison places consistency at the heart of the guest experience. He points to McDonald’s as an example of a business that has built systems around delivering a reliable experience.
“It may not be the best burger, but by God, it is the most consistent,” he says. “You get what you expect. And there is a business for that.”
This philosophy also shapes his approach to local sourcing. Mama Lou’s continues to work with Filipino farmers while exploring local ingredients that can be introduced and scaled through its restaurants.
Failure as Part of the Journey
Looking back, Sison would not erase the failures that came before Mama Lou’s.
“I’m very happy with how I am today,” he says. “I’m happy with the learnings and the growth that I have experienced because of the past experiences and the past mistakes and the past challenges and the past failures that I’ve encountered.”
For him, failure is not simply something to overcome. It is part of learning how to move forward.
“Failure is one of the greatest lessons in life,” he says. “You always have to keep going. You always have to remain calm. And never forget, stay humble.”
Building Something That Lasts
Ultimately, Sison hopes Mama Lou’s will be remembered not only for its food, but for the moments created around the table.
“I hope that our customers, our guests, and the people remember that Mama Lou’s, our restaurants, is a place where their families made memories,” he says, recalling birthdays, first dates, and Sunday family lunches.
For his employees, he hopes the company leaves an equally lasting impact.
“I just hope that working with MLG made them better than when they came in.”
And for the industry, his ambition goes beyond building a successful restaurant group. “We are Filipino-built, and we believe we can compete with anyone, and even globally.”
For Sison, that may be the real measure of success: not simply how many restaurants can be opened, but how much they can build, improve, and leave behind.
Read more stories on Simpol.ph
No Safety Net: Chef Danilo Puga Teaches the Next Generation to Fear Less
Burrow Cafe: A Cozy Hideaway Built on Family, Food, and Craft
