A great free tourist landmark

The story goes that the Philippine shopping giant behind SM stores bought this old property, aiming to build a grocery store on its site. However, they were not allowed to demolish the existing house because it is a historic landmark. So, the company decided turn it into a souvenir shop and open part of the yard into a concessionaire's stand. In my view, that's a win-win situation. considering that many old houses in Iloilo have been left in a sad state of decay.

The concession stand offered a number of good, local and locally-inspired fare. I wish it had more of the locally known food like ibus, suman latik, and puto... with tsokolate or salabat. But what they still offered are great dishes like callos and pancit molo. They also have artisanal ice creams in dragon fruit and blue ternate flower flavors. Only the latter was available the day we went and it was beautifully made. The staff in that restaurant were friendly AND knowledgable... quite a wonderful departure from the uncaring attitude of many service staff I've seen in this city.

The building itself is restored beautifully, with its turn of the century design. Inside, we wish the products were curated better. I am a frequent visitor to the Kultura Pilipino shops of SM and I definitely know they could have stocked the shops better. I also wished they (and the visitors) had more care for the building they are in... some of the shirts were sloppily piled on a table like rags and boxes and plastic were strewed under the stairs. The food shop inside the store also stocked with good produce but sadly, we already bought souvenir snacks a stop before this one.

The Molo Mansion offers a lot of possibilities and I hope it continues of open and attract visitors.... hopefully they will reopen the second floor as well.

One thing I wished the new owners of the Mansion did was to create a better experience that goes into the story of the house. We were all in the dark on the story of the place and the family behind it and that would be a very compelling reason to attract people... a souvenir shop inside an old mansion is nice enough, but a souvenir shop inside the old house of an interesting family, who happened to be one of the governors of Iloilo.