When Ed and Teresita Ngan Tian first met as young auditors at SGV, entrepreneurship wasn’t exactly on their radar. “Both of us were accountants. That’s where we met,” shared Teresita. “We got married months before we left SGV. We did not want to work in the same firm as husband and wife.”
After SGV, Teresita took a finance role at Benedictine Abbey School (now San Beda), while Ed worked at a realty company. But their lives would take an unexpected turn—sparked by one simple observation. “One time he came to fetch me,” Teresita recalled. “I was in a board meeting and he was going around Mendiola. Then he saw a spot somewhere in San Beda.”
Ed noticed something others overlooked. “It was a gold mine,” he said. “It was three o’clock in the afternoon and you could see students from San Beda, Holy Spirit, Central Escolar, St. Jude—they were all converging in the area.”
The idea was simple: open a small stall to serve food to the hungry student crowd. Despite initial hesitation due to conflict of interest, Teresita eventually saw a bigger purpose. “They asked me, being in charge of finance, to look for possible funding [for 35 postulants]. When this idea came up, we brought it to the Benedictine fathers,” she explained. Their proposal—to lease a space and generate income to fund scholarships—was approved.
Using their background in finance, the couple created a detailed feasibility study projecting a five-year revenue stream. They leased a 75-square-meter space, divided it into mini stalls, and operated one themselves. “We had siopao, sandwich, burger,” Ed said. “Kulang pa.”
That’s when inspiration struck—from the customers themselves. “Sabi ng mga bata, ‘Kuya, wala ba kayong pizza naman para hindi naman nakakasawa?’” he shared. “At that time, we did some research on pizzas. It was a big industry. Worldwide pala.”
With zero culinary experience, Teresita dove in. “I had to study how to make burger patties, how to make bread… I even took short-term courses from Sylvia Reynoso,” she said. Their siopao baker even experimented with pizza dough.
Eventually, the generic school stall evolved into a brand. “When we applied to malls, they asked: What is your brand? What is your specialty?” That challenge pushed them to focus—and Lot’s A Pizza was born.
What started as a stall in Mendiola turned into a growing chain. Their story is a testament to what can happen when skills, timing, and bold decisions come together.
This article includes quotes from an interview originally published by Esquire Philippines, authored by Henry Ong.
