East Side Banh Mi is the brainchild of chefs Gracie Nguyen and Chad Newton, a wife and husband team with multiple decades of cooking industry experience between them. (Appropriately enough, they met in a San Francisco kitchen over twenty years ago.) However, since its grand opening in August of 2020, East Side Banh Mi represents the couple’s first foray into a venture of their very own.
Meaning “bread” in Vietnamese, Banh Mi is a distinctive style of sandwich that originated on the streets of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, in the early 1950s during the final years of French colonialism. As a relatively recent street food, there are many variations on the Banh Mi theme — a good number of which are to be found inside East Side Banh Mi itself — but the basic components involve slicing lengthwise a fresh baguette with a crispy crust in order to use its chewy interior as a soft and airy landing strip for the buttered mayo, savory meat, crunchy cucumbers, pickled veggies and fresh sprigs of herbs like cilantro.
“That’s what’s cool about this project for us,” says Chef Chad. “We’ve always had partners or investors. This is the first time we’re doing a family business. It’s really nice this way.”