Humble beginnings, hard lessons — and one more leap of faith
I've started from zero more than once. This time, I'm building in the open.
I'm Andrew Silvestre. I've worked behind the bar, across the sales floor, and inside a multinational — then brought all of it home to build my own café, out in the open. If you're opening your first café or cart, I'll show you how to build it right, not broke.
- TESDA Trainer & Assessor since 2015
- Trainers Methodology I
- Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt
- 3,000+ students trained face-to-face
- Resource speaker: AFP · BJMP · PH Navy
Trained and trusted by
- TESDA
- Armed Forces of the Philippines
- Bureau of Jail Management and Penology
- Philippine Navy
- As seen on GMA News To Go
“Starting over isn't failure. It's a skill — and every restart I made became a tool I now get to share.”
Where I come from
I didn't start with capital or connections. I grew up in a single-income household and worked my way through school.
At 17, I sold ice candy — my first lesson that a small, honest product, run well, can pay. I studied Hotel & Restaurant Management at the University of Santo Tomas and learned the craft from the floor up: behind the bar, on the espresso machine, in the dining room.
What I didn't have was family money, or a roadmap for how any of it worked. So I made a quiet decision early: if I wanted to understand business and money, I'd go find the teachers myself. I sat in their seminars and learned from anyone a few steps further down the road than me — wherever the lesson lived.
The detours were the education
When the bills called for it, I shifted gears — and tried to make every shift count.
I went into sales and the insurance industry, sat for the licensing exams, and learned how people — ordinary and wealthy alike — decide to part with their money. I stepped into real estate, completed the PRC accreditation seminars, and watched how big-ticket decisions really get made. I wasn't drifting; I was studying the one thing school never taught me: how money, value, and trust move between people.
Then 2020 came. The pandemic hit food and beverage hard, and only a few made it through. So I pivoted again — into the multinational BPO world. I worked up from Subject Matter Expert to Team Leader, then found my footing as a Quality Analyst, turning patterns in how people work into better performance. Those years taught me what no single counter could: how people development works at scale — with method, with data, with consistency.
Now I'm bringing all of it home, to the industry I started in — and taking the leap I've quietly been preparing for the whole time. The point of every detour was so you wouldn't have to take them all yourself.
What I do now
I help first-time Filipino founders open their first café or cart — built right, not broke.
And I'm building my own café, Mentors Business Café, out in the open — so you can learn from a real build instead of a highlight reel. Three things, one thread: developing the people who carry the work.
Craft training (TESDA)
Barista, Bartending, and Food & Beverage Services to a national standard — the skills that get people hired and keep a business running.
Leadership & people development
Helping new supervisors, team leads, and founders lead people well — shaped in a multinational environment, delivered through Mentoris Institute.
Building in public
My own build, documented honestly — the wins, the costs, and the mistakes — so you don't pay for the same lessons twice.
Start with the blueprint, not the guesswork.
The free Café & Bar Founder's Blueprint walks the 5 stages from raw idea to open doors — the same sequence I'm using to build Mentors Business Café in the open. What to lock before you spend a single peso, the order to do things in, and the costly first-timer mistakes to skip.
Get the Free BlueprintIf you're starting again
If you've had to restart more than once, let me say it plainly, as someone still in the middle of doing it: you're not behind. You're building a skill most people never have to.
You don't need to come from money to build something that lasts. You need the craft, the systems, and someone a chapter ahead willing to walk it with you. That's the whole reason I'm doing this in the open.
From the people I've trained
“Before po, crew lang ako at self-supporting student. Limang buwan after kong i-apply yung tinuro sa akin ni Sir Andrew, naging store manager na po ako — yung position na pinaghihirapan ng iba ng ilang taon.”
“Nung makilala ko si Sir Andrew, dinala niya ako sa training na nagbago ng pananaw ko. Sinunod ko lang yung process, at after three months, naging kitchen manager na po ako.”
As featured on GMA News To Go
A national feature on the craft — and the business behind it.
I sat down with GMA News To Go to talk about the work: where the craft meets the discipline of actually building something that lasts.
The bigger game
Today I lead Mentoris Institute for Leadership & Enterprise. The long mission is simple to say and hard to do: to develop the leaders who will build the future of the Philippine MSME — one founder, one team, one first café at a time.
It starts with a single build, and the courage to begin. Maybe yours.
For organizations & partners
For companies, institutions, and teams: I bring a mix that's rare in one trainer — frontline F&B craft, real sales-floor experience, and multinational-grade quality and L&D discipline — backed by national certification and years of training at scale.
- TESDA Trainer & Assessor since 2015 — Barista NC II, Bartending NC II, Food & Beverage Services NC II
- Trainers Methodology Level I (TM1)
- Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt
- 3,000+ students served in face-to-face skills training
- Resource speaker — Armed Forces of the Philippines, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Philippine Navy
- Featured on GMA News To Go
- Founder, Mentoris Institute for Leadership & Enterprise, Inc.
If you're developing people — a team, a workforce, a founding cohort — I'd welcome the conversation. Message me.