Hard work pays off for seven friends as they venture into the food industry, away from their educational backgrounds. Flipping burgers, and spreading their sambal belacan — the journey of ‘Porc’ from the roadside to a food outlet can be an inspiration to many.
Hard work pays off
The saying ‘hard work pays off’ is always true. Seven friends behind ‘Porc’ started selling burgers on the five-foot ways of Tabuan Laru, Kuching and have now managed to set up a proper outlet, to continue serving juicy, sweet pork burgers to the community.
Speaking to co-founders Louis De Rozario and Jason Foi, they admitted that Porc have come a long way ever since they first started in January 2019.
Starting with just five friends initially, Louis reminisced the times when they first opened, “It certainly wasn’t as nice back then. But when we see people coming, often the same faces, meaning regulars, we were already quite happy.”
He also added that business was up and down at the time as they are still new, “Even if we just manage to get a few hundred ringgit in sales in a week, we are content and okay with that.”
The challenges were different too. “When we first opened our stall, most of us had full-time jobs. The burger joint was only a side hustle.” Louis then admitted that the biggest struggle for him was disciplining himself to open up the stall after a long day at work.
After a year of business, Porc moved to Simpang Tiga, Kuching — opposite The Spring shopping mall the following year. Renting a stall at an eatery, they continued their venture in a different setting.
Nonetheless, Louis said that opening a stall was more “chill”. Opening a cafe would mean more commitments will be needed to follow through.
Jason added that the two are different elements. “Everything is different. The way we serve customers, the food presentation. Even the amount of customers we serve are different.
“For me, it’s like we really need to commit in giving the best to the customers. With a proper outlet, customers will expect more from you,” he continued.
However, opening up an established outlet also has its own challenges. One of them, according to Louis were troubles with serving customers. “We have the first order, first served basis. There are times when we receive customers who sit down first, but order last and expect to get it first.”
Sizzling goodness — Porc offers juicy pork burgers with different flavours for different taste buds. 
Juicy pork patty with homemade sauce.
The Porc musketeers
In the beginning, there were only five friends on board the idea of Porc — Brandon Teo, Brandon Jude Speldewinde, Nicholas Bong, Hezron Kutu and Louis De Rozario. Midway through their business, Eric Tiong and Jason Foi joined in.
With Brandon and Nicholas’ background in business administration, and Brandon Jude Hezron and Louis’ background in architecture, they each brought their talents to the table to create the initial recipe. “It took us two months to came up with the recipe. To perfect it took us another half year. Even now, we are still constantly improving because as you may know, nothing is stagnant in the food industry. We need to keep up with the trends,” shared Louis.
Maintaining the house specialty till today, Porc serves a juicy variety of pork patty, pork belly infused with a local taste — the sambal belacan — together with their homemade sauce. It is a merger of Sarawakian flavours that we are blessed with.
Still operating at the same place, Porc now operates under the name “Urban Haus” at the same location as their second stall at Simpang Tiga, Kuching.
