Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Pak.
Hi Matthew, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Rochester, New York and worked in Kitchens since I was 14 years old. I traveled to Phoenix Arizona when I was 21 and worked under some very good Chefs there and continued my training. I then left there and moved to Houston Texas about 16 years ago and worked as a sous chef under Mike Potowski at Benjy‘s restaurant. I left after four years and partnered with my partner Shawn Bermudez to open our first Food Truck called Koagie Hots which was a Korean barbecue cheesesteak concept. From there we opened a second Food Truck called the Golden Grill, which was a grilled cheese Food Truck then we took over Coreanos, which was a Korean Mexican fusion truck. And our fourth truck was Theburgerjoint. A little over 12 years ago we found our first brick and mortar location for The Burger Joint which is the Montrose location located on Montrose Boulevard and Westheimer Road. I learned a lot opening the brick and mortar and we ran that for several years before we decided to expand to a second location. The second location is our Heights location which we opened about five years later, which was during Covid that was a very hard experience, going to go only right in the beginning and having to work through that shortly after Covid, they started major construction on the main street, which was N. Shepherd Dr. Which also impacted us for almost 2 years. We pushed through that and now that Location is thriving. Our third Burger Joint location was shortly after the height and was in Friendswood, Texas, outside of Baybrook mall I moved to that area around the same time and it just made sense to open our first suburb store over there from there. We recently opened our fourth location, which is the memorial location located in Gessner Road in I 10. We are set to open in 2 to 3 months our 5th location of The Burger Joint in Rice Village area on Kirby Drive across from Loro‘s second location.
As far as Taco Stand, we opened our first location, which was side-by-side with our Heights location around five years ago that was supposed to be a one off Location concept, but we felt strongly about it so we decided to expand as we did The Burger Joint. Our second Taco Stand location was opened a little over three years ago in Webster, Texas, which is one exit north of where The Burger Joint location is down south. And then within a year ago, we opened a third Taco Stand location, which is in the Montrose area on Westheimer. Just like our fourth Burger Joint location in Memorial we opened a Taco Stand location side-by-side with that location in memorial on Gessner Road recently.
As far as my personal journey, I have learned a lot over the years, owning and operating these stores to get to where we are at today. Shortly, after our expansion into our second location, I realize that I cannot do everything myself and that I had to put systems in place in people in the right places in order to make it work and be successful. There were a lot of hard lessons learned and a lot of mistakes made but resilience paid off and so far so good. A big change from then until now is that the advancement in technology has definitely helped more recently. In the past we didn’t have resources like we do now to streamline and assist us.
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?
Nothing was smooth about it. I would say at this point, it is “smoother”. But in this industry you can’t really get comfortable. Things change nonstop and we are dealing with human beings on both sides. A continuous struggle has always been trying to keep consistency across the board. And it starts with the team and the training and also systems that are created and of course accountability.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My background has always been in the kitchen and on the creative side with the menu and food. That has always been my passion. Of course operating the business is a whole. I’ve had to learn and adapt on other things and I’ve actually learned to enjoy the whole operation as a whole and not just the kitchen side. I have learned the fast casual business very well. I think I’m most proud of helping create something that I’m proud of and something that creates jobs and also satisfies communities with Food and Service. I think What sets us apart from others is our consistency and quality of our product. Also, our concept is different in many ways than other Burger or taco restaurants.
What’s next?
We just went through a major expansion over the past few years and we have a couple locations and another concept in the HOPPER within a year to finish, but we definitely will continue to discuss further expansion of our concepts. I do want to mention that we do have a concept that we opened last year called Happy go Lucky a Hawaiian shaved ice in frozen cocktail concept right next to The Taco Stand in Theburgerjoint on North Shepherd in the Heights that focuses on the shave Ice frozen cocktails, and soft serve cocktails. We make the soft serve, cocktails, and frozen cocktails from scratch using fine spirits.
Contact Info:
- Website: Burgerjointhtx.com Tacostandhtx.com happygoluckyhtx.com
- Instagram: Burgerjointhtx tacostandhtx happygoluckyhtx
