For Cooks, Pop-Ups Are the Path to Restaurant Possession

When 2024 F&W Greatest New Cooks Leina Horii and Brian Lea signed the lease on the house that might develop into Kisser in Nashville, that they had a totally completely different idea in thoughts. They deliberate to open a takeout window serving Japanese barbecue and bento packing containers. At this time, Kisser is a vivid daytime café serving home-style Japanese dishes, with none barbecued meat in sight.

Via a collection of pop-ups they hosted as they awaited constructing permits, Lea and Horii discovered that the general public demand for homestyle dishes like udon, onigiri, and inari was a lot bigger than they’d anticipated. Finally, they modified their whole menu to accommodate the meals they discovered individuals have been most responding to.

The affect these pop-ups had on Lea and Horii’s closing idea of Kisser mirrors the  experiences of many Greatest New Cooks. Pop-ups are more and more the trail to restaurant possession for first-time cooks. Their decrease overhead permits cooks to check out completely different types, based on Karyn Tomlinson, one other 2024 F&W Greatest New Chef and the proprietor of Myriel in St. Paul.

“It’s a good way to develop a culinary voice in a approach that you do not all the time have the posh of doing whilst you’re working in someone else’s restaurant,” Tomlinson mentioned. Earlier than opening Myriel, Tomlinson had been the chef at The Nook Desk, which closed in 2019. 

Throughout the quick window between its closure and the start of COVID lockdowns, Tomlinson did a pop-up at a residency house in St. Paul. She referred to as the idea Ufta, and whereas it was completely different from what Myriel grew to become, it was proof to her that folks resonated with the extra private, Scandinavian-Minnesotan cooking that might develop into the spine of Myriel. 

“Persons are compelled once they see someone who actually is worked up about what they’re doing and it tells a cohesive story,” Tomlinson mentioned. “I feel [Ufta] was most likely the primary time that I broke out of the preexisting expectations of a restaurant and did one thing actually all about my story.”

Via their pop-ups, Lea and Horii additionally discovered individuals responding strongly to the meals that was extra private to them, particularly to Horii.

 “At the back of our minds, the meals that we’re doing now was all the time extra what we needed to be doing,” Lea explains. “We simply didn’t suppose there can be sufficient demand, that folks can be acquainted sufficient with the meals.”

 The primary time they offered onigiri at a farmers market, Horii had vital doubts.

She mentioned, “I keep in mind asking Brian: ‘Are individuals simply going to be strolling by saying, like, what’s that bizarre Asian girl promoting?’” They offered out in lower than half-hour. “Individuals would say, ‘Oh I’ve seen onigiri in manga, and I’ve all the time needed to attempt it, however I’ve by no means seen it anyplace.’”

To at the present time she says she’s often shocked by how many individuals have a private connection to the Japanese dishes they serve.

 “Individuals say, ‘Oh, my neighbor rising up was Japanese, and I grew up consuming curry as a result of my finest good friend was Japanese,’” mentioned Horii. “However they’ve by no means had it anyplace as a result of nobody serves it.” 

Fortunately for Lea and Horii, there have been vital delays within the build-out course of for Kisser. It took virtually a yr simply to get permits accredited. In that point, they started to shift their idea. If you recognize what you’re searching for, Horii says you may nonetheless inform within the house at this time that they made the choice to serve meals in individual partway by development.

“We have had individuals within the business even remark like, ‘Hey, did you guys intend this to be a takeout window?’” she mentioned. “As a result of the best way that the road is formed and the way the counter is formed, it appears to be like like an space that you need to stroll as much as and order from.”

Wedchayan “Deau” Arpapornnopparat, one other 2024 F&W Greatest New Chef, by no means even supposed to open a restaurant. He started in 2020 serving juices and drink concentrates out of a tent outdoors his condo in Los Angeles. However individuals needed meals to go along with their juices, so a second tent appeared, serving simply a few dishes. Then smoke from wildfires round LA originally of 2021 compelled him inside, and he signed a lease with a developer who had an open house in a meals corridor, which grew to become the primary location of Holy Basil.

“We’ve simply adopted what we’re inquisitive about,” Arpapornnopparat mentioned. “We opened the Atwater location as a result of we needed to prepare dinner meals that aren’t so good for takeout, so we would have liked a sit-down house.”

Arpapornnopparat has caught with mindsight of a pop-up whilst he has expanded his enterprise. The creativity and the willingness to alter have been a profit to his enterprise, which has continued to evolve over time. 

“I feel we’ll proceed to see pop-ups be a testing floor for brand spanking new eating places,” Arpapornnopparat mentioned. 

The power to slowly begin a enterprise, relatively than dive in with the excessive threat and excessive funding of a restaurant, helps younger cooks reduce their tooth, based on Tomlinson, who tries to host common pop-ups at her restaurant.

“The half you do not see as a lot in a pop-up is form of the enterprise aspect of issues,” she mentioned. “Not everybody who’s proficient in kitchens wants to start out their very own restaurant, however [pop-ups] is usually a good solution to give somebody a style for that slightly bit.”

Myriel’s chef de delicacies, who’s Bulgarian, plans to do a pop-up on the restaurant someday within the subsequent yr, which Tomlinson says she encourages. 

“Opening a restaurant is a big dedication,” she mentioned. “A pop-up may be a good way to check the thought.”