Salaryman in the Dallas Bishop Arts District is closed after its chef and mastermind Justin Holt was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Holt remains in the hospital for treatment and is unable to work. A GoFundMe fundraising campaign has been started for the chef, with a goal of $100,000.
[Update on Nov. 30, 2020: Chefs are also supporting Holt with a fundraiser called the Dream Box. Order one here.]
“It’s heartbreaking that Justin, who has been so committed to taking care of our employees and community, has to stop cooking to fight for his own health,” says Trina Nishimura, Holt’s partner, in a prepared statement. “Of course we are sad to shutter our first shop. But for now, it is time to focus on Justin’s health."
Oct. 15 was the last date Salaryman served customers.
The restaurant was the culmination of Holt’s years-long obsession with ramen noodles and other Japanese cuisine. It opened in September 2019 and a restaurant review in late 2019 by The Dallas Morning News called it a “transcendent izakaya.”
It was a tiny place, with only 27 chairs. And often, it was hard to get a seat.
Before the pandemic, we wrote that Salaryman was turning out “some of the most ambitious ramen in the country, backed up by a menu that is artfully, and deliciously, both Texan and Japanese.”
When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Salaryman’s staff struggled to change its business to meet the needs of touchless, takeout restaurant models. Much of the allure of Salaryman was inside its restaurant, where Holt could often be seen behind a puff of smoke, grilling yakitori as his staff ladled bowls of broth that might have cooked for 20 hours.
Over the summer, Holt and his team sold yakitori bento boxes, frozen cocktails and Salaryman swag like T-shirts. It wasn’t the typical Salaryman, but it was something.
In its short life, Salaryman was certainly one of Dallas' best ramen shops and possibly one of the most ambitious small restaurants in this part of the country. It was a nominee for Best New Restaurant by the James Beard Awards and honored by Texas Monthly.
Nishimura reports that Holt started getting sick during summer 2020, at the same time the restaurant was grappling with the pandemic. “What started with a couple of sick days here and there quickly progressed to sick weeks off,” she says. He visited doctors “week after week.”
The GoFundMe is set up specifically to help with the cost of Holt’s long-term treatment. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, is a form of cancer that starts in the bone marrow and can spread to other parts of the body.
When sous chef Andy Nguyen and Nishimura locked the doors on Oct. 15, they didn’t realize it would never reopen. But Holt has now been in the hospital full-time for about a month. His experience changes by the day, Nishimura says, from immense pain in the beginning to small walks around the hospital floor more recently.
“The road before us is long,” she said in an email. She calls his treatment “aggressive and lengthy,” but says Holt is strong.
She confirms Salaryman is “closed for good.” She is hopeful that, someday, Holt “will find another opportunity in Dallas to do what he loves: serve great food to the people who love it and continue moving the Dallas dining culture forward.”
