The owners of a Filipino grocery store in the Puyallup area are raising funds to make their dream of running a cafe a reality.

Marifel Osera has owned the Sari-Sari store with her mother since 2020 when it was just off of Meridian. Now, located at 10312 120th St. E., Suite 4 since 2023, Osera hopes they can convert their existing meat market kitchen into a deli kitchen.

The plan is to add a cafe into the grocery store, according to Osera. When she opened the store in the new location, they were going to eventually add a second kitchen alongside the meat market one. That plan has been scrapped due to extensive plumbing and venting requirements. Osera said even just a consultation for the plumbing was almost $1,500, so they decided to replace the meat market kitchen with a deli one.

"So what we'll do is like desserts, a lot of like shaved ice. Then there's this thing called halo-halo that we sell a lot of during summer, even in the winter," she told The News Tribune in a phone call Friday. "We also were hoping that we can make our own bread in store, so it'll be like a fresh bread every day type of thing. And then we're also hoping to do like a breakfast type of menu."

Halo halo is a popular cold dessert from the Philippines, and means "mix-mix" in Tagalog. For the breakfast, Osera said she hopes to have a longinisa, rice and eggs dish along with rice porridges and soups.

Osera said the cafe in the grocery store would be called Meryenda Cafe. In Tagalog, Meryenda means a midday snack to get you from lunch to dinner, she said.

For the kitchen, Osera said they would close off part of an area, and have an L-shaped wall. They would then have a doorway connect both spaces.

Osera has had this dream of opening the café for a few years so they can offer prepared foods and Filipino baked goods to the community. She moved to Tacoma from the Philippines in 1997 with her sister and mother. When she moved to Puyallup in 2011, she would have to drive 20 minutes to a store to get decent bok choy, she said.

She started Sari-Sari with her mother after working in an administrative job through AT&T. Her position was cut, and she used the severance pay to start the store.

Now, Osera hopes to get the cafe up and going, but there have been roadblocks as business has been significantly slower than any other year.

"Usually in the summertime, people you know go camping and they do a lot of outdoor stuff. And summertime is usually what we thrive in, and it hasn't been that way all summer long, and that's even when we did that pop up in July," she said.

The pop-up was from the end of June until July 18 inside the store where they sold iced desserts like halo-halo and Filipino hot foods. Osera said business has been so slow that even their three-week pop-up drew a smaller crowd than before.

A GoFundMe has been set up to raise funds to help convert the kitchen and have the cafe come to life. The funds raised will go toward closing off part of the existing building, covering permits, paying for construction labor and purchasing the building equipment.

"The permitting on its own is already at $2,000 just to switch the meat market kitchen to the deli kitchen, and then along with that you have obviously the construction," Osera said.

As of now, $1,315 has been raised with a goal of $20,000. Osera hopes to start work on the new kitchen in September. First, she has to submit her application to the county's health department, which she is almost ready to do. Then, the process will move onto the building department for approval.

Osera hopes to have the cafe up and running before Christmas.

The employees at Sari-Sari are all Filipino, and some have worked at the store since it opened, Osera said. Some of them are Osera's family members like her nieces. A lot of the staff are in school, and work part-time.

One of the part-time employees is a University of Washington student who needs to work on Saturdays so she can afford going to school. Another has an autoimmune disease, and can only work part-time.

"It's kind of easier to accommodate when you work in a smaller place and you have certain needs, health wise," Osera said.

Osera's other niece works at the store, and does school online.

"I'm very grateful, and that's why it's hard ... I need it to thrive because my girls need me to," she said.