Hi,

Happy Good Friday for any good Catholics. Good news- you get to eat meat on Fridays again after today, YAY! Oh, in other Good Friday, good news for everyone- if you haven’t heard, Button Mash is NOW RE-OPEN for biz again! ^_^

…but, ummm, if you haven’t heard by now, uhhh, you can’t eat our food at Button Mash anymore. 😔

(FYI-I’m a bad Catholic since I eat meat with reckless abandon on Fridays… AND I’m a bad hypeman/person too not-so-subtly sliding in this *bomb* of Starry Kitchen news into that seemingly sincere and mostly upbeat greeting. 🤦‍♂️)

SO, YEAH, you cannot have our food at Button Mash anymore. It was NOT anything sudden, a creative or financial tiff or even a personal falling out. Quite the opposite, we’re all still buds- I even wanted to bus tables last night to celebrate Button Mash coming back to the neighborhood but instead sat by myself just being nostalgic and drowning my old memories with new taco memories instead LOL.

(not our food @ Button Mash anymore, but honestly Tacos 1986 is quite delicious)

The pandemic (sucked and) changed a whole lot. I would LOVE to leave it at that, but in a previous draft of this news someone pointed out ending this without any further explanation made it sound more dramatic and shady than it really is. (The more personal part of the story is… well, it’s more thoughtfully personal as in life changes while trying to reach actual balance, and would be the most boring VH1 “Behind The Music” backstory). The simplest and most definitive version that hopefully spells it out the best about drama that isn’t even there: from the bottom of my heart, this is the only way Button Mash was going to be able to come back.

We’re very thankful for the opportunity and time at Button Mash. We’re incredibly nostalgic about many of the crazier times there we hadn’t experienced before. We’re sad we’re not part of their next chapter, but we’re also very happy Button Mash could come back and be part of LA but more importantly Echo Park yet again.

(No more Tofu Balls… at Button Mash at least)

I hope that helps quell any weird mystery scenarios y’all might have in your head about this? If it doesn’t, I don’t know what else to do other than maybe write a second cookbook/memoir for the SAKE of fleshing out all the (super boring) moving parts for you. LOL (btw, that’s a joke… I’m not doing or pitching that… yet?!? ^_^)

With that said, we do realize that this FEELS very familiar to those that have followed us for quite a while now. (for those that haven’t followed us for long, yer lucky! ;D) The part where we’re at a place, then we’re not, then we’re at another place and evolve our menu and create something else you’re addicted to (the now elusive Singaporean Chili Crab comes to mind here, which we have NOT forgotten about), and then we’re not… again. Then we come back again (Dan Dan Noodles, Pineapple Shrimp Fried Rice, housemade French Fries OR our Double Cheeseburger that we spent 1 year researching anyone?!?)… then we don’t yet again. Rinse, repeat the dramatic rollercoaster and even more new, tasty dishes to miss. :(

We understand what we’ve put many of you through all too well, and this time we’re not going to play (too) coy and let you all know that,

“WE HAVE… PLAN!”

…as in a singular plan, yes. We’re excited about… PLAN #shinstarrykitchen. Hey, at least we have something in mind! :p

We promise to tell you more soon. But also wanted to reach out because this satisfies people smarter than me that advised that we “stay ahead of it” like a great episode of Scandal! (and if anything, we wanted you to hear/read it from us personally as well ^_^) Oh and we DEFINITELY have plans for things IF they go awry… part of which is “winging it!” The other part is… other crazy sh*t we’re planning = nothing out of the SK norm. ;)

For those that read my last verbose email (thank you! LOL) you already know the main plan, BUT there is more to PLAN (that our private discord server knows more about, and we’ll open up a next wave of more people in the future if you’re interested ;D) that we will tell you more about too.

Thank you so much to everyone that’s followed us and our food. Thank you to those that supported us at Button Mash. Thanks to all the staff we’ve trained, got to know and grew with (even if you don’t like me haha) over the years (before, during and after Button Mash) including our first EVER Starry Kitchen employee who’s getting married TONIGHT. Congrats!!! And a big thanks to Button Mash themselves. I don’t know if/when and what Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan multiverse (we haven’t actually seen “Everything Everywhere All at Once” yet, but everyone cooler than me tells me it’s bonkers good!) we’d EVER dream up a weird-ass collaboration of arcade games, a game culture memorabilia shop in Pwnshop (shout-out and big thx to iam8bit too!), craft beer and then ALSO Starry Kitchen.

With that said, let’s see what other weird-ass ideas+collaborations we can come up with in the future… while also making as much of our food more readily available to as many of you as possible, OUR WAY, because we do honestly owe every single one of you that much.

Xoxo,

Nguyen and Thi Tran

Chief Instigating Officer and Kitchen Ninja / #shinstarrykitchen

PS - Call me super sappy. Call me melodramatic. Call me (maybe? haha I couldn’t help it). I’ve genuinely been moved to actual tears at the endearing quality of all the responses I’ve read thus far. I… didn’t expect it or expect to be so moved by it too. Thank you so much. I hope to respond to as many of you as I can soon… and if I don’t and you don’t see this email or PS… here we come Craig’s List Missed Connections! ;)

(This photoshopped pic is HELLA old like back in our illegal+underground apartment days circa 2009… but still feels appropriate for this message if you (but no one did) ask me. ;))