Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Pak.
Matthew, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in upstate (Rochester) New York. I worked in kitchens since 14 years old including pizzerias and country clubs. I moved from New York when I was 21 years old and moved to Las Vegas to work for a catering company. A couple years later I moved from Las Vegas to Scottsdale, AZ. I worked for Robert McGrath, a James Beard award-winning chef and also Aaron May. At this point, I realized that this was my passion and this was what I wanted to do forever. After 3 years, I made my way to Houston, TX in 2009. I worked at Benjy’s Restaurant as a sous chef for 4 years under Dylan Murray and Mike Potowski.
In 2012, while working at Benjy’s, Shawn Bermudez (my partner) hired me as a consultant to create a menu for Royal Oak Bar & Grill (2011 Houston Press Best Bar Food). In 2013, I left Benjy’s to partner with Shawn to open a string of Food trucks, Koagie Hots, Golden Grill, and later purchased Coreanos. We continued our partnership with opening The Burger Joint Restaurant in 2015 along with 2 Burger Joint food trucks for mostly catering and events. We decided to sell Coreanos and close the other trucks to focus on The Burger Joints growth.
We have recently started construction on what will be our second location at 2002 North Shepherd Drive in the Heights. We hope to have the doors open this Winter and we will continue to look for perfect locations to fit our brand and continue to expand in the Houston area.
We greatly appreciate Houston and the customers that have supported us and continue to do so.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It is never as smooth as you’d like it to be in this industry. At one time, owning and operating 4 food trucks with 4 different concepts was very challenging. We now have 2 Burger Joint trucks and it is still a different animal to operate. As most restaurant industry people will tell you, the hours are long and hard, and it never ends. My biggest focus is keeping our product and service, in all aspects, consistent to our brand. This is the struggle. Whether we decide to open 1 more location or 10, it is very important to me and my partners that we keep consistency in everything that we do. Often times, you will see a company expand to multiple locations which in return you will often see a decline in food quality and service. This is my deepest fear!
Please tell us about The Burger Joint.
We focus on keeping the burger classic. I know, doesn’t sound very unique these days. Let me explain though. A classic burger to me is something that doesn’t have this super thick patty and dense bun. A burger should be fairly easy to eat. The bun should “smoosh” down and mold to your fingers. The toppings should be evenly spread so you get everything in every bite. The ground beef patty should be loosely packed and not dense and tough. We focused on creating a product that everyone is familiar with but at the same time, bringing different, creative options to the classic burger.
For example, The Kimchi Burger, one of our most popular Burgers. It starts with my grandma’s recipe of the Korean BBQ style beef patty. Growing up she hand made these little juicy meat morsels loaded with garlic, onion, and soy sauce. I’m glad I paid attention! This patty is topped with cheddar cheese, a runny fried egg, kimchi and house-made garlic aioli.
Another aspect that we thought about was price. I spent a lot of time searching and testing ingredients and product that would perfectly fit what we were going for. We wanted this good size quality burger (6.5 ounce patties) with fresh ingredients but not the high price to go along with it. We wanted to capture our demographic completely. We are family friendly, dog friendly, doctor friendly, construction worker-friendly, student on a budget-friendly, industry worker-friendly, Houston Astros player friendly, city official friendly, office worker-friendly, etc. Hahaha!
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Nothing. I learned from all of my mistakes and I continue to do so. I am very fortunate and proud to have the team and partners that I do.
I learn from them everyday!
Pricing:
- Classic burger $6.75
- Hand Cut Fries $2.75
Contact Info:
- Address: 2703 Montrose Blvd
Houston, TX 77006 - Website: https://www.burgerjointhtx.com/
- Phone: 281-974-2889
- Email: info@burgerjointhtx.com
- Instagram: burgerjointhtx
- Facebook: burgerjointhtx
- Twitter: burgerjointhtx
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-burger-joint-houston-10
Image Credit:
Matthew Pak
Shawn Bermudez
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