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

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.

Okaeri’s story is one of success in the age of restaurant concepts that are created and grown online. Like many restaurants, the cafe was supposed to open in the spring of 2020, but its owners were forced to change their approach when the pandemic began and the world shut down. Now, two years later, Michelle Pepping and Gene Tran’s concept is riding the social media-driven momentum that grew their pandemic ghost kitchen into a popular brick-and-mortar cafe.

For years, Pepping and Tran talked about opening a cafe together since befriending one another in college. Their pipe dream came to fruition when Tran returned from a several-year stint in Japan with a head full of inspiration and a need for a new project. Okaeri Cafe was always intended to be a counter service dining spot, but the pandemic delayed those plans, and led Pepping and Tran to launch their business as a pop-up.

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.

“It was tough at first, but we had our egg rice that really gained a following,” Tran said. “It’s a very eye-catching dish.”

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.

Okaeri acquired a loyal following by promoting limited weekly specials on Instagram, and the concept proved successful, but would the ghost kitchen find just as much success as a full cafe? Pepping and Tran were hopeful but unsure.

“We thought, if not now, then when? This is a great concept, and there’s no way this can miss, but then what if it does? We were nervous,” Tran said. “If you believe in what you put out, you just hope other people like it. These are all things we like to eat and drink, and people seem to like what we’re doing here.”

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.

“We couldn’t keep up with demand. There were lines out the door and we did run out of food, but overall everyone was very understanding,” Pepping said.

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.

The cafe’s internet inception is evident in its Instagrammable plates like the yakisoba hottodoggu, a hot dog loaded with stir fried noodles, and neat stacks of tonkatsu and spam onigirazu. Tran said although starting as a ghost kitchen wasn’t the plan, Okaeri Cafe wouldn’t be what it is now if it had a traditional launch.

“If we had started in this place right away, there would have been no build-up. I think starting as a pop-up helped us because if we had opened cold turkey, we could have started completely from scratch,” Tran said.

The cafe functions as a full-fledged coffee shop all day long with pastries from Richardson’s La Casita Bakeshop, locally roasted beans, and cold brew imported from Japan. The lunch menu is available from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the dinner menu is available from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Okaeri Cafe is located at 312 N. Greenville Ave., Suite 100, Richardson. It is open Tuesday to Saturday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.