BY MORGAN LEGEL
Journal Staff
Photo by Morgan Legel
The Melting Point bar and lounge opened on March 26 in the Tumon Bay Shopping Center, near The Royal Orchid Guam Hotel. The 1,600 square-foot location can house about 50 to 60 customers.
“For us, the vision for Melting Point comes from how we view Guam,” said Christopher Bolus, one of the co-owners of Melting Point. “Guam has a bunch of different cultures — Chamorro, Filipino, a bunch of military, Japanese, Chinese, Korean — and when you bring all of those different cultures and all of those different people into one location, that’s a melting point.”
Kenmark Orejola, the other co-owner, jumped at the chance to open when Bolus approached him. This is both of their first business ventures on island.
“It’s always been something I wanted to do – starting a business here on Guam,” Bolus said. “Especially, with seeing so many young entrepreneurs, it’s very inspiring. When I saw that someone was selling this, I asked Ken if he wanted to make this happen, and I said it’s now or never.”
“I’ve always wanted to own a bar,” Orejola said. “I’ve worked in the food and beverage industry for almost seven years. And, for me, the timing is laid out perfectly, even with all of our roadblocks.”
Some of the roadblocks included a long renovation to the interior of the property and difficulty with business licensing and permitting.
Since the space was previously a massage parlor, a whole new kitchen had to be erected. The lease for the location was originally signed in September 2021, and the duo got the business license six months later, in March.
“The hardest part was that everything we needed to do wasn’t all laid out easily,” said Bolus. “You would go and ask for the things we needed, but when we came back, we needed more things. It prolonged the process.”
While the pair don’t expect business to erupt quickly, Bolus said that’s not what they’re aiming for at current.
“Our main purpose right now is for people to come in and feel the environment. We’re not expecting it to be crazy busy all the time just yet, but we want people to be comfortable when they’re here,” he said.
The menu including beloved bar food like burgers, wings and fries has fun twists, including a spicy Chamorro burger with Dinanche, wing nachos topped with bacon, cheese and ranch dressing, fries tossed in tonkatsu mayo and a poke bowl.
In addition, the bar is offering daily lunch specials.
“The chef really tries to offer something new every day for lunch other than what’s on our menu,” Orejola said.
For the future, the pair plan to hold different theme nights, including cosplau, anime, jazz and Chamorro, which will have “a different night for everyone,” according to Orejola.
Currently, there are six staff, aside from the two, but the owners are hiring four to six more people, including servers, bartenders and kitchen staff.
In other business news, The Guam Chamber’s Business Women’s Network held a pop-up event on March 26 in the Chamber office in Hagatna. Over 20 women-owned small businesses were showcased, including Artsy Craftsy and Beyond, CC Creative, Creations by TSkye, Drip Served Daily, Dudus Girl Guam, Flame Tree Candle Co, ForgedbyFaith671, Guam Baby Co., Hafa Clay Collection, Hunny Threads, Isla Charms, Just Crunchies, KC Creations, LEAF, NewGen, Numa’lo Refillery, Pinkerbell, RaiRoseRue Collection, Styles by Kim, Sugar Fix Guam, The GuDog Supply and Umi & Meg Collection.
Also, after nearly 20 years of business on the island, GameStop will be closing in both the Micronesia Mall and Agana Shopping Center locations in April.
The closure of the 2,746 square-foot mall location, which relocated to the current space from another within the mall on Jan, 10, 2016, and the 1,500 square-foot Agana location, which opened in September 2004, was announced via the stores’ Instagram account, @gamestop_guam.
The March 30 post and announcement said, “It is with heavy heart that we announce the closing of both Guam Gamestop locations by the end of April. Thank you for all the love and support you have given us and thank you so much for shopping with us for the past 20 years. We couldn’t have done it without you and have made some great memories both as customers and as employees.” mbj
