ROOTED IN GRATITUDE
Escobar’s 4th Anniversary Tree Planting
July 9, 2026 • La Salle Botanical Gardens, Porac, Pampanga
The Escobar’s team and patrons, ready to roll — Escobar’s x LSBG Anniversary Tree Planting, July 9, 2026.
A Celebration Worth Waiting For
Our fourth anniversary tree planting was originally set for July 1, 2026. Then a typhoon had other plans. But if anything, the reschedule made the morning feel more earned. On July 9, we loaded everyone onto a bus bound for La Salle Botanical Gardens in Porac, Pampanga, and headed into the hills.
This was not a typical anniversary celebration. There was no banquet hall, no program, no formal backdrop. Just a group of people who believed in Escobar’s when it was still just a small restaurant finding its footing, and a patch of land that needed a few more trees.
“Happiness FOUR Everyone means the happiness we serve is not
just for the people who walk through our doors.”
Into the Green
Getting to the planting site was an adventure in itself. The trail into La Salle Botanical Gardens
wound through lush, overgrown paths that nobody had warned anyone about. The group walked in a long single-file line through tall grass and dense foliage, trowels in hand, laughing at how far from a restaurant kitchen they suddenly were.
Nobody complained. That was the thing. Patrons who are used to being seated and served were
now climbing hills, hauling seedlings, and getting their hands in the soil without a second thought. It said something about the kind of people who have chosen to support Escobar’s.
Everyone Got Their Hands Dirty
Once the group reached the planting site, there was no waiting around. Seedlings were distributed, spots were assigned, and people got to work. Staff carried supplies up steep inclines. Patrons knelt in the soil and pressed young trees carefully into the earth. Everyone had a role, and everyone played it.
Patrons and staff working side by side on the hillside at LSBG.
There is something leveling about planting a tree together. It does not matter how long you have
known someone, what table you usually sit at, or how many anniversary dinners you have
attended. When you are both pressing soil around the same seedling, you are just two people
doing something that will outlast the both of you.
Careful hands, careful roots.
Why This, Why Now
Escobar’s has grown faster than most people expected. The inquiries about franchising come in
every week. But before any of that happens, the foundation has to be solid. The tree planting was not just a metaphor for that belief. It was the actual practice of it.
Trees give us fresh air. They hold soil together. They slow down floods that have gotten worse
every year. Choosing to plant trees as an anniversary activity was a deliberate decision to say: we are a restaurant, yes, but we are also part of something larger than what happens inside our walls.
To Everyone Who Came
Maraming salamat to our patrons who made the trip, to our staff who made it happen, and to our partners at La Salle Botanical Gardens for sharing their land and their mission with us. You did not just plant trees today. You planted something in the story of Escobar’s that we will carry forward fora long time.
The trees will grow. So will we.
