Lisa Ling on why Asian food in Los Angeles matters.
A black cod goes from the Pacific to Shibumi.
Keeping cool when the kitchen gets hot.
One restaurant’s many pandemic pivots.
Two different takes on Indian food.
Every day’s a hustle at Woon.
From Asian farms to Los Angeles restaurants.
Why in L.A. they’re not boring.
Three restaurants breaking boundaries.
Mastering values at Yang’s Kitchen.
Two chefs go behind the blade.
Omakase and ramen join the neighborhood.
The coronation of soju and makgeolli.
Three women open the bar they want to walk into.
Indonesian community through cuisine.
On working with Mom and Dad at Anajak Thai.
Los Angeles before sushi.
Inside the staff ritual of eating together.
Three Vietnamese restaurants expand the city’s palate.
One chef has some thoughts.
Waking up Los Angeles to Burmese cuisine.
The couple behind Shiku goes with the flow.
An ode to those who keep them going.
Michelle Bernstein embraces the competition.
One restaurant’s epic journey from debt to success.
The couple behind Boia De and Walrus Rodeo play by their own rules.
Vermouth gets a bar of its own.
On the business of BBQ in Miami.
Recipes for navigating an uncertain economy.
The secret to never getting old in a town obsessed with what’s new.
How two pioneers of omakase introduced Miami to a new way of dining out.
Chasing a childhood memory one arepa at a time.
Why Miami’s mainstays of Middle Eastern food aren’t phased by the influx of glossy newcomers.
David Foulquier on his shapeshifting ambitions.
The Black chefs behind a vegan movement in Miami.
Two Cuban sandwich masters talk shop.
A new generation’s take on the classic Jewish deli.
Miami’s mavericks of sustainable growing and dining.
An intimate glimpse inside restaurants after the last customer leaves.
Creating a culture where employees stick around.
A new kind of bottle service takes root in Miami.
The art of staying put in a changing city.
The city’s ventanitas created a culture all their own.
Philadelphia Magazine’s food critic on the irrepressible attitude that is the key ingredient of the city’s restaurants.
How one restaurant gave birth to many.
The cheesesteak may be the global mascot of Philly. But a contingent of pioneering chefs and restaurateurs have made the city a hub of vegetarian innovation.
The city’s Eritrean-Ethiopian restaurants serve up more—way more—than delicious food.
How Juan Carlos Aparicio baked his way to running a restaurant (that isn’t a bakery).
How Alex Tewfik went from being a food editor in Philly to owning one of the best restaurants in town.
Two restaurants that share a belief in how cooking can be force for change.
How Chutatip Suntaranon channeled her upbringing in Thailand—and life spent flying around the world—into one of Philly’s most singular restaurants.
Stopping by the warehouses in Kensington where artisan upstarts are breathing new life into the city’s food scene.
The Ongoing Evolution of Philly’s Classic Sandwiches.
Chloé Grigri, Amanda Shulman, and Ellen Yin on upending the rules of the game.
Mike Solomonov takes stock of his journey.
When a customer becomes a friend.
Ange Branca was forced to close her beloved restaurant in 2020. That was just the beginning.
How do you build a restaurant in a space that was never meant for a restaurant? In Philly, a city of Revolutionary Warera buildings and colonial row houses and ancient warehouses, it can be a bit like playing Tetris with Benjamin Franklin.
Three Philly couples get frank and intimate in sharing their recipes for romance.
Inside the world of homespun pop-ups and unexpected collaborations that have made Philly’s dining scene like nowhere else.
The classics are easy enough to master by anyone with fine liquor and a recipe.
The city has long been a vibrant hub of Vietnamese food. Today, a new generation is striking a balance all their own—between creativity and tradition, innovation and memory.
An ode to the unsung heroes of restaurant kitchens from a comedy writer who couldn’t take the heat.
A cell phone has been invented that allows you to send one text message to your younger self. What do you write?
Opening a restaurant means going into enormous debt and betting that you can cook and serve your way to the other side—a journey that is rarely a straight line. Here’s how the enterprising husband and wife behind Phuc Yea, a beloved Vietnamese-Cajun restaurant with a hip-hop attitude, played the odds and won.
1
Back in 2011, Cesar Zapata and Ani Meinhold found themselves in a dire spot when a restaurant partnership crumbled: unemployed, out $15,000, and wondering how to keep chasing their shared dream of opening a spot of their own. That’s when they conceived of Phuc Yea as a pop-up, the first ever in Miami.
2
The two found a breakfast-to-lunch café that was struggling with rent and made an agreement: They would cover the $1,600 in rent in exchange for being able to use the space at night. Deal made, they maxed out a credit card at $2,500, using the money for food, supplies, and decorations, and opened up with fingers tightly crossed.
3
On Phuc Yea’s first night the demand was so high that all the food sold out long before closing. “This was before Instagram, but I went nuts trying to get us mentioned everywhere possible,” says Meinhold. Soon the novel operation was bringing in $10,000 a week, allowing them to pay down their initial investment, earn back what they’d lost, and stow away money for a more permanent venture.
4
After closing down the pop-up after three months, the two switched gears, investing $50,000 into creating their first restaurant, a new American tavern called The Federal Food, Drink & Provisions. With $50,000 from another investor, they figured they could get it up and running smoothly.
5
“Never again will I be so naïve!” says Meinhold, explaining that after the build-out they had no reserve funds. Though they made Federal work for five years, earning accolades, covering the $8,500 in rent along with food and labor costs, their days (and nerves) were constantly frayed. “From day one we were basically operating without any operating capital,” says Meinhold.
6
In 2016, their landlord at Federal raised their rent 20 percent. “We didn’t have a liquor license, we didn’t have the $200,000 you needed to get one, so we just couldn’t see making it work,” says Zapata. They closed the doors and decided to bring back Phuc Yea, but as a brick and mortar. “That’s our baby, what put our names on the map,” says Meinhold. “Now the question was: How to swing it?”
7
Years of praise helped them secure a lender who would finance Phuc Yea’s build-out of $400,000. The plan was to open the substantial space—4,100 square feet, 120 tables—in three months. But difficulties with the contractor and permitting derailed everything, and the new landlord required them to pay the full $15,000 monthly rent throughout the delays. “I thought we were going to lose the place before we even opened,” says Meinhold, who dealt with the blow by doing a lot of the work herself. “What was once a very well-funded restaurant was suddenly losing a lot of money. That’s when I went from not knowing how to screw in a lightbulb to becoming a carpenter, building tables, building the bar, anything to save money.”
8
Phuc Yea opened in 2016, 14 months later than expected, with crowds pouring in for the beloved dishes from the pop-up, along with an expanded menu. By the end of their first year, the couple was confident that they’d built a business that could carry its overhead and give them the life they were seeking.
9
Then, in August of 2017, Hurricane Irma hit South Florida, shutting down their power grid for three weeks. They lost $100,000, and often covered costs by forgoing their own salaries and operating as a pop-up with a grill in front of the restaurant. “And again, it was like: Is this ever going to just work?” recalls Zapata.
10
Rebounding, the restaurant enjoyed two years of steady growth. When COVID-19 emerged, in 2020, the couple was well prepared, having learned from their experience with Irma. “We created a delivery/takeout model when the pandemic was still a whisper, keeping it invisible on our website and then going live the moment the shutdown came,” explains Meinhold.
11
Today, on the eve of Phuc Yea’s seventh year, the restaurant has become as smooth an operation as any independent restaurateur can hope for. “We’re still paying down the initial loan, and have a million line items like everyone else, but we’re able to create cash reserves and keep growing,” says Meinhold.
12
Recently, the two opened up EatPhomo, a fast-casual spot in the Time Out Market, and a Phuc Yea booth at the Kaseya Center that operates during basketball season, and are presently revamping Phuc Yea to maximize the space for special events and live music. “What started as $10,000 a week from a pop-up is now three different operations that are bringing around $4 million a year,” says Meinhold. “It’s still a hustle, but now we can actually take vacations.”
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