Today we’d like to introduce you to Keith Tran.
Hi Keith, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Our chef Stevie Nguyen comes from the world of Japanese fine dining. He’s worked at Uchi (Houston, Austin, and Dallas) and in New York City (Morimoto and Momofuku Ko). In early 2020, he decided to move back to Dallas to start his own restaurant concept based on Japanese breakfast and lunch with a focus on elevating sando (aka sandwiches) that are normally found at convenience stores in Japan.
Then Covid happened. Since we weren’t able to open a restaurant, we decided to launch the brand as a pop-up using borrowed kitchen space in Deep Ellum. Within weeks of starting, we were selling a few thousand sandwiches per week. We couldn’t keep up with the demand. We used a pre-order system to handle the volume, and we were literally selling out in minutes every week. We operated in Deep Ellum for 3 months. Once Covid restrictions were lifted, we had to find a new home for the pop-up, so we decided to go to California.
While in California, we were invited to do a private lunch for Chrissy Teigen and John Legend at their home. That’s when we went viral! From that point, we started to travel the entire country doing pop-ups. Over the past 3 years, we have been all over the country (Dallas, Austin, Houston, Denver, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Orange County, CA, Los Angeles, and San Francisco).
Now we looking to set up a permanent shop in Dallas which hopefully will happen this year.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The biggest struggle that we faced was handling the volume. Our team of chefs are trained in the world of fine dining where expectations are high but they are serving a small handful of guests per night. We had to transition to putting out the same quality of food while serving thousands of people at a time. Over the past 3 years, we’ve been able to turn our process into a well-oiled machine so we don’t think there are any challenges that we aren’t ready for.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Sandoitchi is introducing Texas and the rest of the country to the art of the Japanese sando. We pride ourselves on presenting something that may be foreign (unique flavor profiles) but instantly familiar (at the end of the day, it’s a sandwich). We are honoring Japanese food with traditional techniques but using local ingredients to make them our own.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Food really brings everyone together! We started during Covid at a time of a lot of uncertainty, and we loved giving people something to look forward to every week. Now we’re still continuing that with bringing people from all walks of life together post-pandemic.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sandoitchi.com
- Instagram: @sando.itchi
Image Credits
Kathy Tran
