The Quick Read
- Vandercraft Cafe started in 2022 out of a personal crisis, not a business plan, when co-founders Ivan and Bry combined a culinary background with food delivery experience.
- The cafe built its name as a queer-owned safe space with homemade recipes, long before it had any formal online store.
- Word of mouth and a Facebook group carried the business for years, but the founders knew referrals alone would not carry it forever.
- Moving to Magic by Mise gave Vandercraft Cafe an online store and a loyalty program, and the cafe grew its customer base beyond the neighborhood even during a slow season.
A Hemos PH editorial series, presented by Magic by Mise
A Pandemic Crisis Led Two Friends Into Coffee
Vandercraft Cafe did not begin as a business plan. It began in 2022, in the middle of the pandemic, when co-founder Bry faced a pet in need of serious medical care at the same time he was dealing with a job retrenchment. He and his partner Ivan first considered a tapsilogan. Ivan’s culinary training and Bry’s background in the food delivery industry pointed them somewhere else instead: a neighborhood cafe, built by two people with no formal entrepreneurial experience but a clear read on their own strengths. Every item on the Vandercraft Cafe menu went through repeated taste testing and customer surveys before it was allowed to launch.
Vandercraft Cafe Built Its Identity Around Safe Space and Homemade Recipes
From the start, the founders wanted Vandercraft Cafe to be known as a queer-owned business first. They built it as a space where safety did not depend on location, including for plus-size customers and members of the community who refer to themselves as bears. Most of the cafe’s sauces are homemade, a detail customers noticed early and kept mentioning. Some have told the founders their drinks hold up against, or beat, what they get from larger chains like Starbucks and Harlan & Holden. That kind of comparison is not something a small neighborhood cafe usually earns without consistent quality behind it.
Word of Mouth Carried the Cafe Through Its Early Years
Getting people through the door was harder than making the coffee. The founders learned that social media strategy only goes so far, and that real engagement and word of mouth did more of the actual work. A break came in 2023, when a friend connected them to Ayala Malls Market Market for a series of partnerships. The events widened Vandercraft Cafe’s social media presence and put the brand in front of people who would not have found it through the subdivision alone.
Bry Searched for Years for a System That Could Grow With the Cafe
Before any of that, orders came through the subdivision’s Facebook group and Facebook Messenger. It worked because of how tightly connected the community was, and referrals kept Vandercraft Cafe as a default choice for coffee in the area even as competitors opened nearby. But Bry had been looking for a proper system since 2022, something that could handle customer acquisition and retention the way a small cafe with growing demand actually needs. Nothing he researched, and no meeting with a prospective platform, gave him enough confidence to switch, until he met the team behind Magic by Mise. What convinced him was not a sales pitch but the expertise of the platform’s owner and developer, and the sense that the relationship would keep improving as issues came up rather than end at signup.
The Online Store Changed How Customers Order and Return
Two things stood out once Vandercraft Cafe moved onto Magic by Mise. The first was how quickly the online store came together. Neither founder had an ecommerce background, and they were still able to set up and customize their storefront in a matter of minutes. The second was the platform’s marketing tools, which let them create their own discount codes and run a loyalty program, Vandercraft Rewards, where digital stamps replace the paper kind and a free drink waits at the end of it. Features like these usually carry a higher price tag once a merchant adds them on top of a basic storefront. Vandercraft Cafe got access to both without that cost sitting in the way of a small business trying it for the first time.
Vandercraft Cafe Grew Through Its Slowest Months
July through September are known in the trade as the ghost months, a stretch when sales typically dip. Vandercraft Cafe joined Magic by Mise in July, in the middle of that slow period, and still logged 100 orders that month. August brought 250, even with the platform still new to both the cafe and its customers, and even through typhoon and monsoon weather that kept people indoors. Some of that growth came from old customers coming back, and some from new ones the cafe reached through continued engagement on Facebook Messenger and social media. The founders have chosen not to share their full sales figures, but they point to something less easy to fake: customers now placing orders from outside the immediate neighborhood, and returning with bigger baskets each time.
What Comes Next for Vandercraft Cafe
The founders are already thinking past the current setup. They want more coffee cart events, and as Magic by Mise adds features, they plan to work through a backlog of ideas for the online store that Bry has been writing down since 2022. For a cafe that started because two friends needed to solve a personal crisis, the plan now is less about surviving and more about building out what they already know works, one addition at a time.
Check out Vandercraft Cafe’s Facebook Page and Instagram Page
Also Check out Mag!c By Mise the online hub for home based sellers!
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