Interview with Yume Tran, co-owner
Q: How did you get involved in this business?
A: We were IT professional for close to 20 years before deciding that we wanted to do something on our own. Owning a restaurant would not be something we recommend to anyone once we found out how challenging the business is; however, we have been blessed with all the support from the community to allow us to grown at a very decent rate year after year for the past 13 years with our first restaurant, Indochine Cuisine in the beautiful Parker Station building in downtown Parker. Indochine is a sit-down-type of restaurant serving modern Thai and Viet cuisine. Parker and other areas in Douglas County really support locally owned establishments, and we saw that there was a need for healthy fast-food in Parker so we decided to open a roll-your-own-type of sushi place.
Q: What distinguishes you from other businesses in your category?
A: We offer a limited sushi menu in an Chipotle-type of ordering process. Our sushi is made fresh to order and our customers can either order off the designed menu or pick their ingredients and we will roll for them. Our guests just walk up to the counter and tell us what they want in their rolls and we roll them right there and then. We don’t judge, so people can make their rolls with meats and whatever combination their hearts and tummies desire. Also, many of our clients know that we are very well-versed in gluten-free, soy-free and Paleo-type of cooking. Most of our sauces are gluten-free as well as most of our ingredients.
Q: What do you like best about your line of work?
A: We have made so many friends from our huge pool of regular guests, and that makes going to work every day not like work. We also love knowing that many of our customers would be able to have meals according to their required diets when they come to our place. We love to create new rolls, new combinations of rolls and new beverage offerings (like milk tea with boba) to excite our customers. We just love the interaction daily with our guests, as 99.9 percent of them are super nice human beings.
Q: What is your business’ biggest challenge?
A: SuChine is in the back of our building — across the hall from our bigger restaurant Indochine Cuisine. People don’t know we are here yet as we have not done much in terms of marketing our little sushi place. But for those we have discovered us, they become our regulars.
Q: Something people might be surprised to learn about you or your business:
A: We are technology geeks as well as food geeks. We constantly research and look for better ways to prepare our food. I understand people’s needs for food prepared certain ways because I have a very high intolerant to certain ingredients like MSG, food coloring, caffeine and dairy.
Profile
Business: SuChine
Address: 19751 E. Mainstreet, Suite R3, Parker
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-8:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday
Founded: 2013
Contact: 303-805-0874,
Employees: 3
