At the Instagrammable Okaeri Cafe in Richardson, a pandemic pop-up finds brick-and-mortar success

Omurice on Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at Okaeri Cafe in Richardson .It’s not unusual to see a line snaking outside the door of Okaeri Cafe on any given weekend. The new Richardson cafe, which opened in February 2022, is a draw for Japanese food lovers and people looking to snag one of the zashiki-style tables and sit on zabuton cushions while eating photogenic plates of omurice and onigirazu.

Pepping, who owns and runs Chelle’s Seafood Kitchen, also in Richardson, originally converted part of Chelle’s kitchen to Okaeri’s ghost kitchen. She and Tran began making comfort food inspired by Tran’s time in Japan, dishes like katsu curry and omurice, which became an instant internet hit. Traditionally, Japanese omurice is served as a thin omelet filled with fried rice, but Okaeri’s version takes after the Korean preparation that cloaks a mound of fried rice in a soft, swirled omelet and serves it in a demi-glace. It’s a modest dish often made in home kitchens, but it recently found global fame when videos of the “tornado omelet” technique went viral in the summer of 2020.

When they opened the brick-and-mortar cafe, they were hit with more business than they knew what to do with at first. The small 30-seat cafe was overwhelmed with customers who ardently followed the cafe’s pop-up journey and new faces coming to experience Japanese comfort food. Nearly two months later, diners still flock to the cafe and wait in line on weekends to sip vivid matcha lattes and snap photos at the zashiki tables or in front of the statue of the cafe’s mascot Yugii, a smiling shiba inu with a leaf sprouting from its head.

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