Welcome to In the Weeds, a new publication covering the business of independent restaurants.
For this edition, I spoke to Charles Wong, the chef and owner of Chicago-based Umamicue, who has been trying for some time to open a brick-and-mortar location. We discuss how the setbacks may have helped make him and his business stronger … or at least led to certain opportunities. One of those opportunities was the Utility restaurant pitch competition, which he won last year.
I’ll be bouncing between the Utility and the National Restaurant Association shows in Chicago in a few days. If you’re going, please let me know.
If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here.
Charles Wong and his brisket banh mi.
For Charles Wong, opening a brick-and-mortar Umamicue location has been a long, winding process. There have been plenty of setbacks, but, ultimately, he thinks they’ve made him and his business stronger.
He started developing dishes like brisket banh mi, smoked brisket egg rolls, and smoked Crab Rangoon out of his house over a decade ago. Umamicue combines the Vietnamese-Chinese cuisine Charles ate growing up in Chicago with his more recent discovery of Texas BBQ. He juggled a job in finance for a few years before quitting in 2019 and starting wildly popular pop-ups across Chicago. The plan was to open a brick-and-mortar next. But the pandemic set that back.