Latest offerings: Restaurants, cafes and more

BY SKYLER OBISPO
Journal Staff

Guam welcomed several new additions to the business community in the form of restaurants, cafes, and supermarkets. 

According to figures from the Department of Revenue and Taxation, nearly 500 restaurants filed business licenses between May 2024 and 2025. Compared to figures 24 years ago, the number has hardly moved. However, the largest change over the years is the increase in the number of coffee shops and cafes. 

Among the newest coffee shops is C-41 Film and Coffee shop in Tamuning. It is a coffee shop and film development lab hybrid that offers film digitizing, self-printing kiosks, and roll film cameras alongside its beverages. C-41 opened on May 20. 

Sean De Leon owns C-41, alongside Snap GU Studios, a photography and videography studio located in the same building. He said the inspiration to open the shop came from his love of both roll film photography and coffee. 

He said film is not dead and he has been shooting film photography for more than 11 years. The one thing that binds his dual passions for coffee and film is time, he said. 

“The way I make our coffee — it’s not fast paced. I want to take my time to make sure everything is good; precise,” he said. “It’s just like developing film. It takes time to develop, you’ve got to wait for it, you’ve got to be patient.”

There has been growing interest in film photography or the film aesthetic in the island’s younger generation. De Leon said it's the new experience and the aesthetic that could only be caught in film that draws in the younger crowd. 

“They never experienced how it was … shooting film back in the day; like how I experienced film. How my mom used to shoot film,” he said. “There’s some photos on film that you can’t do on digital, like halation of the lighting,” he said.

De Leon enjoyed seeing his old negatives develop and wanted to share that experience with others, he said. 

As for coffee, De Leon wants to keep his menu small with strictly coffee and tea and small foods. The driving force behind the menu is to master the drinks and perfect them and keeping the menu small is one way to do that, he said. 

Varghese Chackvinny has opened Tiara Indian Restaurant at Legacy Square in Mangilao with a soft opening on May 10.

The restaurant features Indian and fusion cuisines with its roots from south India, in the state of Kerala.

Chackvinny, alongside his daughter, Eva Princely, described the culture of Kerala as very similar to that of Guam’s. The pair said it would be easy for Indian cuisine to appeal to the CHamoru palette. 

Princely said not many places on the island offered authentic Indian food, and one of the driving forces behind opening the restaurant was to “bring food to the island not seen before.” 

One of the biggest staples of Indian food, which remains true with the offerings at Tiara, is spices. Chackvinny and Princely make use of native Indian spices like cardamom, nutmeg, and saffron in dishes. They try to source these directly from India and what they cannot source, they buy from Pomika Sales, an Asian food retailer. 

Ultimately, Tiara Indian Restaurant aims to be a hub of “culture, music, and food,” Princely said. 

Fizz & Co., the 1950s Americana-themed soda shop, opened a second location at the Village of Donki on May 24. 

According to Jaceth Duenas, marketing consultant for Fizz & Co.; the Village of Donki had asked the restaurant to expand to the store’s food court in 2024. The expansion to the Village of Donki marks the third in the history of the restaurant, since moving to its location at the Agana Shopping Center from across Bank of Guam’s main branch in Hagåtña 11 years ago. 

The expansion to the Village of Donki was welcomed by Fizz and Co.’s customer base, Duenas said.

“Customers were saying [they wanted a location] closer to home,” she said. Its new location in Tamuning puts a branch of the restaurant closer to its northern customers. 

Since the move, Fizz & Co. noticed that a good portion of its patrons stem from the Japanese tourism market. 

[The Japanese] love the taste of Americana,” Duenas said. Some fly  to Guam to try the food, she said. 

While Japanese tourism definitely helps the businesses, the core tenet for Fizz & Co. is to “bring back the happy days” to the people of Guam, she said. Overall, Duenas said the business aims to offer a family-friendly atmosphere to enjoy classic American food. 

The Fizz menu is best known for its Nathan’s Famous hotdogs, homemade burgers, sandwiches, and paninis, and handcrafted sodas and milkshakes; all of which are available at the Fizz & Co. Pop Shop in the Village of Donki, with the exception of its custom burgers which can be found at its Agana Shopping Center location, Duenas said. 

For Fizz & Co. the expansion to the Village of Donki was a happenstance that owner LeAnn P. Crisostomo was able to seize at the right time; something the restaurant encourages others to do alongside promoting creativity and unique experiences for visitors and island residents alike.  

Bob’s Poke Bowls, which opened on May 13 between the Guam Reef Hotel and the Westin Resort Guam in Tumon, is the latest in a series of restaurants by Sakurai Guam Inc., which also does business as Sakura Kitchen. 

The restaurant’s main dish is its poke — diced fish served often with a bed of rice or vegetables but it also serves barbecued meat and tofu and side orders of mochiko chicken and shrimp. 

Super Happy Mart opened a new location in Tamuning featuring the same grocery store offerings as its Barrigada location, but with a revamped kitchen, sushi bar, and bakery. 

The store itself measures to approximately 35,000 square feet and touts fresh, air-flown seafood and pastries from the Philippines. 

While new businesses opened throughout May, one is closing its doors permanently. 

The Cancer Center of Guam closed its doors on May 30. 

According to a notice circulating in the community, the center’s medical director, Dr. Samuel Friedman’s medical condition is the cause. Patients are encouraged to collect their files. 

The Cancer Center of Guam has provided specialized hematology and oncology care for more than 20 years, first opening its doors in 2004. The center also provided medical support for patients in Saipan, Rota, and Tinian. mbj