Fried quail is not on the menu at Mecha Noodle Bar. But maybe it should be; it was the dish that co-owners Tony Pham and Rich Reyes were enjoying at a birthday party when they met in the second grade.
Both children of immigrants, Pham and Reyes formed a fast friendship that has now lasted decades — and which evolved into being co-owners of Mecha Noodle Bar, a full-service concept that Pham first opened in Fairfield, Conn., in 2013.
“They're parallel stories of two sons of immigrant parents, and we happened to grow up in a small town called Bethel, Conn., which is not the most diverse town being suburban Connecticut,” Reyes said. “So we kind of bonded together over this idea of just being different and that our homes and our dining room tables were the place that we felt most at home.”
Pham was inspired by the emerging ramen trend of the early 2010s, and the success of restaurants like Momofuku, to open the first Mecha location. He assumed that being located between New York City and Boston would lead to customers who were educated about ramen, but he was wrong. Early on, Mecha’s team had to teach guests how to eat with two hands (“spoon in one, chopstick or fork in the other”) and that slurping was encouraged.
Then one day, Pham said, his mom — who he’d owned a Vietnamese restaurant with — came by and added pho to the Mecha menu, “and it just stuck.” With that addition, they called it the “neighborhood noodle bar,” Pham said.
Since those early days, Mecha’s menu has continued to evolve. Today, alongside ramen and pho, the menu includes bao, “munchies” (plated dishes), hand rolls, and an extensive beverage menu that includes beer, wine, sake, bubble tea, and cocktails. The website defines it as “Asian soul food.”
Reyes, who previously owned a separate restaurant concept, joined as a partner in Mecha with the second location. He said he made the jump because he knew Mecha would be a success because food “from the heart and soul” would be front and center.
He also believed that his experience as a son of Latin American immigrants and Pham’s as a son of Vietnamese immigrants would come together as a unique American dining experience.
“What is it that the American consumer, when they sit down for a meal, really wants? They want restaurant design, they want music, they want cocktails, they want all those things to work together in synergy in that black magic of restaurants,” Reyes said. “So can you take a product from someone's heritage, serve it in that environment, but serve it with integrity? And that's what Mecha Noodle Bar did and does to this very day.”
Reyes added that his partnership with Pham is all about “instinct and intellect,” where Pham is the creative half of the partnership who follows his instincts, and Reyes is the intellectual half who can steer the business “from a business management perspective of discipline, of accounting, of finance — all the things you would typically expect would be needed to help a company grow in scale from ideation to actual execution.”
In 11 years, Mecha Noodle Bar has expanded to 10 self-funded locations in four states and Washington, D.C., with eyes on further expansion.
Each Mecha restaurant sports natural wood finishes, particularly in the two-by-fours that hang from the ceiling as if they were noodles. Music plays throughout, mostly ’90s hip-hop that Pham and Reyes listened to as kids. Pham said the overall vibe of the Mecha dining rooms reflects the baggy-clothes-wearing, backward-hat-boasting essence of their childhood.
“We wanted to kind of invoke that time capsule, where you come in and you're like, this is kind of just chill, just like us,” he said. “You can come in work clothes or you can come on a date. We wanted to include everybody.”
Particularly important to Mecha Noodle Bar is the company’s Eat Justice program, through which the company donates 50 cents from every item sold to an employee relief fund and other causes. The program started during the pandemic, when the founders were simply trying to provide groceries and other basic needs to employees while restaurants were closed. It’s since evolved to one of the core operating principles for the concept.
“Obviously you need profits, but if we can treat our people right, including the guests and our employees, we'll create a great business model, a winning business model where it's a win-win for everyone,” Pham said. “And that's what we really tried to do first.”
Mecha Noodle Bar was named a 2024 Hot Concept by Nation’s Restaurant News, recognizing emerging chains from around the U.S. that have impressive growth momentum and the potential to become household names. Reyes will be speaking at CREATE, the free event for emerging restaurateurs, in Nashville this Oct. 9-11.
