VVV FOREVER
Plates up for Vicvic Villavicencio
The country appreciates Victor Vincent “Vicvic” Villacencio, a multihyphenate who pioneered a celebration rite through eating your heart out, as much as you can, as often as you can, while you can. The “Buffet King” is the founder and president of the First Foods restaurant chain, which has the Dad’s World Buffet, Sambo Kojin, Ogetsu Hime, and Number 1 Barbecues. Vicvic passed away on April 29, at the tender age of 67. So on your next
food trip to Dad’s, remember the man behind it and think of him when you say grace for bringing the buffet to the table. THE BUFFET KING In 1977, Vicvic decided to invent a diet-crushing way to get everyone in the food game when he opened his first Kamayan restaurant in Makati city—a household favorite in the local restaurant scene for its elevated Filipino dishes. As its name suggests, it favored eating with your bare hands. In 1985, he opened Saisaki, a Japanese restaurant. In 1993, he opened Dads at Megamall. And in the early 2000s, he combined all three buffets in what later came to known as Dads Saisaki Kamayan or Dads Crossover Buffet. In 2013, Dads World Buffet was born.
All this paved the way for the “Eat All You Can” craze in the country—from meats to fish prepared in a slew of styles, consumed in one sitting, all without the guilt. Hoard all the food you want and devour it in hours, plate per plate, no one cares.
A level up in the local food scene, it has now become a local tradition to eat in a buffet restaurant for celebrations and gatherings, particularly during birthdays and graduations. He also founded Sambo Kojin, a restaurant that offered a fusion of Japanese and Korean cuisines, with dishes grilled and cooked right in front of you.
What Vicvic started was a fun way to get people together and the Filipino family was never the same again. THE BALL GUY
Vicvic was involved in a lot of sports but he was very much invested in basketball when he was younger. He founded the now-defunct PBL basketball team called Triple V, which had the likes of Johnny Abarrientos, Vic Pablo, Dwight and Elmer Lago, Vernie and Victor Villarias, and Noli Locsin among its roster of players. The team won a slew of championships, including a win against Sta. Lucia during a championship match. He was also a major backer of the De La Salle Green Archers in 1994 and 1995. He was also a longtime columnist in The Manila
Bulletin in the '80s.
As a quick getaway from his usual sports, Vicvic found comfort in his fishing rod. He was the first to reel in the largest blue marlin—weighing 522 pounds—that was ever caught in Asia and he did it in just 30 minutes, on the sea of San Vicente, Cagayan in 1999. THE DAD OF DADS
Business and hobbies aside, Vicvic was known simply as a dad to his seven children Veejay, the twins Mara and
Cara, Bokie, Victoria, and Vic. Keeping communication intact in the family, everyone close to him knew that he carried at least three cell phones with him to easily contact his children, even those who were already living on their own.
Everyone followed in dad’s footsteps and ventured into the family business but it was never forced.
“My kids grew up in the business, but while they were growing up, nobody asked them to join the business,” Vicvic said in a Manila Bulletin Lifestyle interview in 2017. “They’re all free to do whatever they want. Whatever that course or discipline is, I just tell them to be good at it.”
The calls, even in the wee hours, could all be work-related. According to Veejay, it was his way of instilling in them a sense of urgency. “Restaurants are never perfect. There’s always something that needs to be done,” Veejay said. “When my dad thinks of something, he would usually explain to you in the evening what he wanted. When you wake up in the morning, that’s the first thing you have to address.”
But most of the time, he just wanted to check up on his “kids.” Cara, the younger of his twins and head of HR and marketing in the company, recalled that he never missed big events at school back when they were still young. “When we had an activity at school like my softball game or my cheering competition, he would show up and watch before going back to work. He really made time for us, which wasn’t easy since there are seven of us.”
He paved the way for the ‘Eat All You Can’ craze in the country— from meats to fish prepared in a slew of styles, consumed in one sitting, all without the guilt.