Verbena Pension House had its humble beginning on May 3, 1976 when it started as a small makeshift eatery "Cozy Nook" located in the garage of Engr. Pedro Urgello's duplex residence along "Verbena Street", hence its name today. It served mainly taxi drivers trying to get hot comfort food (i.e. fish head tinola, caldereta, etc.). Later, office workers tried to eat there and coined the eatery as "Back Han Palace" since it was located behind the former "Great Han Palace". The proprietor, a shrewd businesswoman by heart and wife of Engr. Pedro Urgello, Justina T. Urgello, shelved about P 1,170 as capital for her small eatery. Later, business boomed as more and more people ate in her small eatery. Ten years later, in 1986, Mrs. Justina Urgello loaned P 150,000 from the bank for the construction of a 3-storey lodging house. This came about after her desire to open a safe, clean and affordable boarding/lodging house for medical students of the neighboring school (Cebu Doctor's Hospital), when a recent fire that year gutted down a small boarding house killing all 14 medical student lodgers. The following year 1987 was a bad year for business because the eatery had not flourished much due to less taxi drivers coming in due to the changed "school canteen" ambience and some problems with lodgers failing to pay their monthly dues. Thus in the early months of 1988 Mrs. Justina T. Urgello converted the lodging house into a pension house with 11 rooms. On April 24, 1988, the first popular guests were the cast of the movie, "Alega Gang" whose director was Pepe Marcos, the cast of "Delima Gang", Philip Salvador, and the cast of "Boy Amores", Bong Revilla and Princess Punsalan directed by Teresona,. The room accommodation then was non-aircon with room rates ranging from P 100 - 150 per room. The following year from May to December 1989, the old private residence of the Urgello Family was demolished to give way to a new construction for the new wing of the existing pension house. In 1990, the construction of the two-storey pension house with twenty five rooms was completed with the son of Mrs. Justina T. Urgello, Antonio "Boy" Urgello taking over as manager. After two years, the third floor of the pension house was completed with a total of forty two air conditioned rooms. In 2003 the family purchased a new lot for a prospective branch due to a strong demand for additional rooms. In May of 2006, the construction of a new branch started. On September 28, 2006, the new management team of Jocelyn T. Urgello and Jose Agustin T. Urgello took over the management of Verbena Pension House as well as the management of the construction of the new branch.