Meta Asian Kitchen Is on the Move to LoDo and Baker

"We're graduating," says Doris Yuen, who founded Meta Asian Kitchen with her husband, chef Kenneth Wan. "It's bittersweet. We grew up business-wise at Avanti."

"This was a life-changing opportunity for us," adds Wan. "It gave us the wheels to get where we wanted to be." And on April 30, Meta Asian Kitchen will close its stall at Avanti, the LoHi food hall, that it's had since October 2019.

First, though, it will debut in a new location on March 1, inside Honor Farm, the haunted bar that opened last fall at 1526 Blake Street. Then this fall, Yuen and Wan plan to open their first brick-and-mortar eatery at 39 West First Avenue under the name MAKfam, which reflects a shift in focus to more traditional, family-inspired dishes. "Family is a big part of what we do as far as our recipes, and we always want to drive the sense of community and bringing everyone together — treating our employees like family, treating our guests like family," Yuen explains.

The two met in 2014; they started their first concept, Hong Kong French Toast, in Brooklyn as a side hustle and a creative outlet. Wan has a stacked résumé that includes Momofuku, RedFarm and the Lucky Bee; at the time, Yuen was working in tech. The two got their first taste of what running their own business was like as they slung French toast at the Queens Night Market.

After relocating to Jersey City, they began serving a different, savory menu under the name Meta Asian Kitchen at a pop-up series called Midnight Market. "One of our first dishes was pork belly over rice, which is Ken's mom's recipe," Yuen notes. "It was super popular, and we had a lot of fun."
But the two had another plan in mind. "We were always talking about moving to Denver," Yuen recalls. Wan's sister has lived in the city for years, and the couple had visited several times.

"We noticed that there was not a lot of Chinese food," Wan notes. "There was family out here for support and a need in the market, a void to be filled."

And so, while eating pho one night, the couple wrote a timeline on a napkin. "We talked about quitting our jobs in April 2019 and driving out July 1," Yuen remembers.

"A lot of times, you dream of things and imagine things, but it's hard to materialize unless you actually write it down," Wan adds.

They stuck to the timeline. After resigning their jobs on schedule, they began packing in as many pop-ups and catering gigs as possible in order to save money for the move. They also started reaching out to every food hall in the area. When they arrived in Denver on July 4, 2019, they only had one meeting scheduled, with Avanti — their top choice for their new venture — the following Monday.

"We weren't sure what was going to happen," Yuen remembers. "We didn't know anyone in the industry at the time."

"All we knew was this food and my sister," Wan adds.

The two showed up to that Avanti meeting with a pitch deck, and soon signed a deal. Although Meta Asian Kitchen opened just five months before the pandemic shut down indoor dining in March 2020, being in a food hall insulated the business from some of the challenges independent restaurants were facing. Though Yuen and Wan didn't have to figure out hurdles like capacity limits and table spacing, they did have to navigate the transition to online ordering through third-party delivery platforms. But ultimately, their business survived, and now it's poised to thrive.
Meta Asian Kitchen at Honor Farm will be open from 5 to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. on weekends, as well as Sunday brunch. The menu will "showcase more fun bar food," Yuen says, like wings (which Meta is unable to make using its equipment at Avanti), Chinatown dumplings made from scratch, spicy mozzarella sticks and a Sichuan Málà chicken sandwich. The spot will also give the couple a chance to get a feel for what running a bar program is like ahead of the opening of MAKfam, which will serve booze.

The partnership came together naturally: Honor Farm co-owner Lexi Healy shares a real estate broker with Yuen and Wan. Zach Cytryn helped Healy find the space for her other venture, the Electric Cure, and opened Fuel & Iron at 1526 Blake Street before bringing Healy in to run the space after deciding to focus on the food hall of the same name that he's opening in Pueblo.

Before it shuttered, Fuel & Iron brought in several other local chefs for pop-ups, including Yuen and Wan. When Healy mentioned that she was looking for a food concept to bring on, Meta's owners jumped at the opportunity, since the pairing seemed like a perfect fit. "On the East Coast, Asian-American restaurants, their bar always serves tiki drinks," Yuen explains. "Chinese food and tiki drinks have a history together."

Cytryn also helped Yuen and Wan find the future home of MAKfam. The couple had looked at a variety of options before finding just the right space, located next door to the newest Snooze outpost in Baker.
"It's the perfect neighborhood, perfect size. And we don't have to build a bathroom," Yuen exclaims. After spending all of last year working on the design of the space, the physical work is set to begin. The setup will be fast-casual, with guests placing orders at a front counter, similar to how Cart-Driver and Dio Mio operate. MAKfam will be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, with plans to add brunch and late-night dining on weekends, as well. Takeout and delivery will also be available.

The menu will focus on tradition-inspired Cantonese food with a MAK spin, including a throwback to Yuen and Wan's first culinary venture together, Hong Kong-style French toast with salted egg yolk custard. Yuen even learned how to make milk bread from scratch during the pandemic; she then passed that knowledge to Wan, who has worked on scaling it for the restaurant. "I'm pretty proud," he says. And he should be: The thick toast is perfectly soft and pillowy, and the dish is poised to be the star of brunch.

Dumplings will also be available, including chicken and shrimp wontons in a creamy chicken broth with housemade XO sauce. Wan is particularly excited to have a real wok set up in the new MAKfam kitchen, which will allow him to make dishes that require high heat, like Filipino corned beef fried rice. "I have a lot of Filipino friends on the East Coast, and they always make this with garlic rice," Yuen explains. "By no means is [corned beef] from the Philippines, but all my Filipino friends eat it."

And that's just the start of the innovations. "We're really excited to share more of our food and more of our culture," she adds. "I feel like we can do more interesting foods...basically sharing the food that we love to eat."

"And be a part of the growing AAPI community in Denver," Wan adds. "We're super-psyched to be a part of it," which includes participating in the first-ever Mile High Asian Food Week, taking place February 22-26.

While they didn't hold on to that napkin — "We didn't realize how important it was; I wish we had kept it and framed it," Yuen admits — the two are excited about how much their business has grown since the day they decided to make the move to Denver a reality.

And more growth could be coming in the future. "We have a lot of cool ideas. Not necessarily just MAKfam, but other concepts," Wan hints.