Same Same in Northern Liberties closes
In sum, the casual concept - with its low check average coupled with customers' preference for takeout/delivery - was not right for the space, they said.
Headline this one, "Shame shame."
Chef Chad Kubanoff and business partner Michael Crostarosa have shuttered Same Same, the Vietnamese street-food specialist in Northern Liberties that Kubanoff opened in mid-2015 to glowing notices (including a Craig LaBan two-bell review) for its banh mi, salads, bun, and the like.
In sum, the casual concept - with its low check average coupled with customers' preference for takeout/delivery - was not right for the space at 614 N. Second St., they said.
Then came a series of setbacks, including a key cook's illness and a breakdown of the restaurant's hood system that idled Same Same for four days. Also, both men were working 70-plus-hour weeks.
Kubanoff said he and his family would relocate to North Carolina. He's not afraid of change. As a young man, he left Bucks County for culinary school, followed by one-year stints at Daniel in New York and Alinea in Chicago. From there, he simply packed up and moved to Vietnam, where he landed a head chef's job at a restaurant and met Thuy Ha, the woman who became his wife. The two of them also founded a company that gives food tours from the backs of motorcycles. Then came a return to the States, and a baby.
The space, whose occupants in recent memory included Copper and Koo Zee Doo, is going on the market for lease via Joe Scarpone of MPN Realty.