INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — On Brecksville Road in Independence, Flora Grk, better known as “Tita Flora” has a pan on each burner, cracking an egg over a steaming plate of sisig, and tossing noodles in a soy sauce mix while making pancit. While the kitchen of her new restaurant is a busy place, it’s also one filled with love.
“In my heart, I know I love cooking, and I started as a server, became supervisor and a manager and became a GM. And I have been in the business for 25 plus years,” Grk said. “It took me over 10 years to finally fulfill my dream.”
But finally, that dream is coming true. In July, Grk opened her own restaurant, fittingly called Tita Flora’s: A Filipino Kitchen, a brick and mortar, sit down restaurant fully dedicated to serving Filipino food in Northeast Ohio.
In the Philippines, the word “tita” literally means aunt, but it’s also a term used to show respect and love to a woman who’s older than you, and often a term of endearment for close family friends. It’s fitting, then, that Grk’s restaurant is infusing that feeling of friends-turned-family into her mission.
“It's very, very family oriented, I want it to be like that,” she said of her restaurant, where alongside traditional tables and booths, there’s also a couch area, where she hopes people will sit, converse, and make themselves at home. “Filipinos are very hospitable. That's one thing I know about our culture, they make you feel welcome all the time”
The recipes served at Tita Flora’s are the ones that Grk brought with her from her upbringing in Marikina, part of Metro Manila in the Philippines. Core ingredients of Filipino cuisine include garlic and onions, soy sauce, pepper, and vinegar. Those components, plus bay leaves, feature in a popular menu item at the restaurant called chicken adobo.
Other menu items include sisig, chopped up bits of pork sizzled and topped with a cracked egg to scramble; beef caldereta, tender meat cooked in a stew; and pancit, a Filipino noodle dish cooked with soy sauce and vegetables. Plus, a near constant on a Filipino table - some form of rice, especially garlic fried rice.
“Food is our life and we love to eat, Flipinos love to eat,” Grk said. “Besides singing karaoke, our next thing is, we eat.”
Tita Flora’s has been a family affair. Diners can find Grk cooking away in the back kitchen, popping out to deliver dishes and say hello to customers. Buzzing from table to table are her two daughters. And popping in to help, other family members, including her brother, who visits from Chicago to lend a hand.
While she has family here in the Midwest, she also credits her family back home in the Philippines with keeping her motivated, even through the challenging moments.
“This means everything. This is what I've always wanted,” she said. “I would like to share this to all my family back home. I want them to be proud. It's like, ‘I did it’. We came very poor, and they're struggling back home.”
Her family’s help in running the restaurant, and in providing her unending support, have inspired Grk to continue sharing her culture and cuisine with the entire Independence, and Northeast Ohio, community.
“Just pursue your dream. And that's what I did,” she said. “And with my children, they never left my side. They're always there.”