ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 13, 1996 TAG: 9610120010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: COVINGTON
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
His wife helps with the chopping and cleaning. His kids help out at the counter.
Even his customers pitch in - with the odd used appliance or vegetables from their gardens.
So it goes at Joe's Little Cafe in Covington. On a wing, a prayer and a home-grown tomato.
"I don't give up easy," said Joe Agbo, the cafe's owner and cook.
For 18 months now, the Philippine-born Agbo has been running this little lunch counter on Main Street.
He's not rich yet. "I nearly break even," he said.
But he's still here - which is a success story all by itself.
He doesn't have to be. Agbo has a job. He supports his family on salary and tips from his job as a waiter at The Greenbrier - the posh resort located some 20 miles away in West Virginia.
Occasionally, when business is humming at The Greenbrier, Agbo doesn't make it back to Covington to open his cafe for lunch.
When that happens, he said, his customers understand. "They know I'm working in the hotel. They don't get upset."
They just mourn.
"Can you believe the quality of the food for the price?" asked Steve Nelson, a Roanoke stockbroker with clients in Covington. Whenever he goes to Covington these days, Nelson said, "I plan my schedule around lunch at Joe's Little Cafe."
Food aside, Nelson sees Agbo's story as instructive - particularly for the motivationally challenged.
"I think it's an example for those people out there expecting handouts. This fellow came here from the Philippines and has gone to work and managed to support a family."
Whatever you think about handouts, it is true that Agbo works hard and always has.
He rises every morning at 5 to wait tables at The Greenbrier during the breakfast shift. Around 11 a.m., Agbo heads back to Covington to open his cafe for lunch. Joe's Little Cafe - one of the two signs out front actually says "Li'l," but Agbo jokes he just got lazy - is open Monday through Saturday, 11-3 p.m. Unless, of course, it isn't.
From the restaurant, it is home at 4 for a quick shower - then back to The Greenbrier for the dinner shift. Somewhere between 11 p.m. and midnight, Agbo gets home for a short night's sleep.
Those are 18 hour days, for anyone who's counting.
In many ways, of course, his is the old American story. The one Ronald Reagan loved to tell - and Horatio Alger, and the people who write the Smith Barney commercials, not to mention the welfare reform bills. It's the story of someone - anyone - who builds a life out of nothing but heart and guts and sweat.
Agbo, 42, is the son of a building contractor in Manila. He began working in restaurants in Manila at age 14 - peeling spuds.
As an adult, he left a job at one of the finest restaurants in Manila, in part to avoid living under Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, he said. Marcos, now deceased, left the country during an uprising in 1986.
After leaving the Philippines, Agbo worked for a while in Saudi Arabia. Sixteen years ago he came to America to work at The Homestead, the palatial resort in Bath County. The Homestead hires many Jamaicans and Filipinos, especially in food service, to supplement the small local labor market.
It was while working at The Homestead that Agbo met his wife, Sandy, a Covington native.
The two met through a mutual friend, Sandy Agbo said, "and got married six months after that." They now have three children - Joey, 13, Lesiley, 11, and Laura, 8.
Agbo become an American citizen several years ago. His Filipino name is Teodoro. Friends in the Philippines nicknamed him "Jose," which in America was shortened to Joe.
He does not do vacations. "I don't have a chance," he said. When he does get time off, Agbo said, "I try to spend a little time with the kids."
He has never been back to the Philippines.
"If I get lucky, maybe next year," he said. His mother and a sister have left the Philippines and now live in Covington, where they help out at the cafe. A third sister lives in Hot Springs. Most of the rest of Agbo's nine brothers and sisters still are in the Philippines.
Here in America, meanwhile, Agbo works.
And learns. He learned to cook on his own, he said, simply by watching the chefs wherever he was working. "I learn a lot by looking and by asking."
When he was ready to open his own restaurant, Agbo did it without two tools of modern American business - bank loans and an advertising budget. "I bought this place with my own paycheck. That's the honest truth," he said. "It's my blood."
As for advertising, he explained, "I just use word-of-mouth."
Whatever he uses, it works. Steady customers say Agbo does a booming takeout business. He also does catering, when his schedule allows.
Customers can even eat in at Joe's - if they are lucky enough to snag one of his two tables.
Alleghany County Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Alderson is one of Agbo's regulars.
"Good food. Reasonable prices," he said, when asked to describe the Little Cafe's appeal. "I've been going there as long as he's been open. I don't even order. I just say, `Make me something.'''
Alderson said he developed a taste in the military for Filipino cooking, which he described as "meat and vegetable saute with a side order of rice and an egg roll for three dollars."
Speaking of prices, the Little Cafe's draw few complaints.
"For $3.45 you wouldn't expect to get what you get," said Sandy Agbo, naming the price of a recent lunch special called the "Hawaii Five-O." The "Five-O," presumably named after the old television show, is a hefty rice-based dish involving shrimp, scallops, chicken and beef.
All of his food is locally bought, Joe Agbo said. "I can't stock a lot of food. I just use the local market."
Another Agbo special is "The Cliff House" sandwich - a three decker also served in the Philippines, made with homemade chicken salad and ham and cheese, then rolled in seasoned bread crumbs and grilled.
Agbo strives for an international menu - he dreams of one day opening a restaurant where every member of the family can find what he or she wants.
Thus, in addition to his Filipino dishes, there are quesadillas from Mexico and curry from India. There is Chicken Honolulu, from Honolulu. And spaghetti, from - well, you know where.
There is also his own custom-designed dessert, banana fritters jubilee - a fruit and pastry concoction that is nearly a meal in itself, if not a balanced one.
The sauces at the Little Cafe are homemade. The decor is, too, consisting largely of a sugar cane stalk and a couple of bamboo fans. The walls are sprinkled with pretty starbursts, made by Sandy Agbo with a paint-soaked feather duster. Most of the small restaurant is taken up by the kitchen and the counter where Agbo takes orders. The dining room would make a good-sized closet. He pays less than $200 a month in rent.
"My overhead is not so high," Agbo said.
His star, on the other hand, may be rising. Agbo said he has had offers of financial backing, should he ever want to open a larger restaurant in a bigger city.
Right now, he isn't interested. "I'm tired of moving around, and I've got a good job," Agbo said. "I don't want to gamble anymore. The restaurant business is a risky business."
As for opening a larger restaurant in Covington itself, Agbo said he might - someday.
"In the future, maybe. If I get known and get some money."
LENGTH: Long : 148 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. 1. Customers have been known to planby CNBtheir schedule around lunch at Joe Agbo's Covington cafe. 2. Sandy
and Joe Agbo's cafe is a family enterprise. One of the house
specials is a banana fritters jubilee - a fruit and pastry
concoction with a raspberry yogurt syrup and a scoop of ice cream.
3. Agbo dishes up the special of the day: sauteed beef with chasseur
sauce, mixed vegetables, egg roll, fried rice or garlic bread.
color. KEYWORDS: PROFILE