13 MARCH 13-19, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | Doing Fine ONE CONCEPT RESTAURANT GROUP HAS BEEN QUIETLY EXPANDING ITS PORTFOLIO AND NOW, IT’S GOING UPSCALE. BY HELEN XU Ironically, One Concept Restaurant Group includes many concepts. This under-the- radar company’s portfolio ranges from stal- warts like Go Fish Sushi to buzzy newcomers such as Miya Moon in Lone Tree and Mikaku Ramen & Temaki in Aurora. As restaurant closures continue to stack up amid a wide range of industry challenges, ONRG is an exceptional success. It currently operates twelve locations across its brands and has plans to open two more new concepts this year, with no signs of slowing down. It started with Go Fish Sushi at 1 Broad- way. Qun “Ben” Zheng, a Chinese immigrant and sushi chef, along with his uncle and other investors, opened the casual sushi restaurant in 2007. There, he met then-server Shaung “Sherry” Crossland, who eventually became his wife, business partner and the face of ONRG. For seven years, Zheng and Crossland focused on the one restaurant, slowly building their experience, reputation, cash reserves and connections. In 2014, they expanded the origi- nal location to include a lounge and opened up a second Go Fish Sushi in Broomfi eld. Three years later, family friends ap- proached them with the opportunity to purchase the Bronze Empire, a struggling hot pot restaurant at 1591 South Colorado Boulevard. Instead, Zheng and Crossland opted for a 50/50 partnership with the group and have revived the business, which is on our current list of the Top 100 Restaurants in the metro area. However, Crossland always had her eyes on opening a boba tea shop. “It was kind of my dream,” she recalls. “We didn’t have any good boba in Colorado back then; it’s not like now, where there’s like a hundred.” In fact, there were only two other shops when they opened up a Kung Fu Tea franchise in 2017. The fi rst day, it sold out — 1,400 drinks, with lines out the door. ONRG also started Poke Concept, one of the fi rst fast-casual poke bowl restaurants in Denver. Over the next two years, it expanded to four locations and the team was consider- ing expanding out of state. But by 2019, the market had become oversaturated with dozens of similar concepts, so ONRG instead killed off that concept and went back to its tried-and-true business model. That year, it purchased Sushi Umi in Thornton and opened Makizushi in Little- ton; debuted a second Kung Fu Tea in 2021; acquired Honey Basil Cafe from Zheng’s uncle in 2022; converted Sushi Umi into Chubby Fish Sushi in 2024 and transformed an old Poke Concept building in Greenwood Village into Honey Basil Express that same year. Now, in the last two months, it’s added Miya Moon and Mikaku. When speaking with restaurant owners, it often seems more like a conversation about art, craft, passion and love than business. But for ONRG, each new brand is an iteration of its business hypothesis: Be fi rst, fi ll the gap. In the beginning, the company benefi ted from the luck of being fi rst to market with each concept. But today, it’s laser-focused on its business model and operational execution. “We fi nd the gap. You see, most casual dining, the average person spends $25. And then upscale, you’re looking at $50, $60,” explains Miya Moon general manager Ryan Miller. “Our target for Mikaku is $30 to $35 and for Miya Moon is $35 to $40.” Once the price point and cuisine are determined, a lot of things fall into place. For Miya Moon, the team decided on an up- scale Asian tapas restaurant with Las Vegas- inspired decor and recognizable Chinese and Chinese-American dishes that would satisfy the Lone Tree clientele’s expectations. “Originally, the menu was all Chinese. ... But during our soft opening, a lot of custom- ers were asking us, ‘Oh, do you guys have sesame chicken? Do you have Mongolian beef?’ Because that’s what they were used to for Chinese food,” says James Choi, director of operations for ONRG. “And if that’s what people want, then we shouldn’t tell them no. ... If the menu was only all traditional, the people who only know Chinese-American food, they’re not going to ever come back.” With Mikaku, though, the focus was on hewing to traditional recipes in a bid to become Denver’s favorite ramen shop. “Our chefs went to Japan to learn how to make ramen. ... We are using machinery to make the noodles to make a bigger amount, but the recipes and ingredients are all traditional,” explains Choi. Chimes in Crossland: “Ramen is the big- gest thing right now, but not too many spots in Denver...so there’s a good opportunity.” ONRG has cracked the code that many Denver restaurateurs struggle with: deliver- ing the value customers truly want by being food-driven. “If you walk into a restaurant and you have a bad experience with a server, a month or two later it’s going to be a different server,” explains Choi. “But if your food is bad the fi rst time you go, you’re not going to go back no matter how good the service is.” That’s why the group uses the same high- quality seafood for both Go Fish Sushi lo- cations and the all-you-can-eat menu at Chubby Fish. “Because to us, it’s not worth getting those complaints and the reputation of, ‘Oh, they use cheap ingredients,’” Choi notes. “It’s not just about the food but mak- ing a place where people want to be, where they want to come have fun, whether it’s for drinks or date night. But at the end of the day, it’s a food establishment. People are there for the food and they need to feel like they got their money’s worth.” Then there’s the fact that in the hospital- ity industry, experience pays off. “Opening a restaurant can be hard. But not for us, because we’ve got almost twenty years of restaurant background,” says Miller. “We still get frustrated sometimes, especially because we can’t control the government. But we know how to construct, we know how to hire and train good people, we know how to do inventory, we know all the basics.” Currently, nearly ten people work at ONRG’s corporate headquarters in posi- tions that oversee planning, accounting and marketing — the team even includes a full- time photographer. ONRG has also benefi tted from the con- nections that Crossland built over decades in the Denver restaurant scene. In fact, she poached Choi from Marriot after he became a regular at Go Fish Sushi; she met Miller while patronizing his karaoke bar; and she counts many Denver infl uencers as friends. The night before we visited Miya Moon, the mayor of Lone Tree dined there; the night we stopped in, Alisha Alexandra of the Ins- tagram infl uencer account @denv.her was enjoying a meal with friends. Even as the upscale dining scene gets more crowded, ONRG is once again fi nding the gap, this time in high-end dining. “Sherry and Ben, they love good food. Even when they treat friends or staff, we’re always going to high-end restaurants. They take pride in being able to eat something really nice that maybe other people can’t afford to eat all the time. So that’s how SYC Concepts was born,” says Choi. “They’re actually Sherry’s initials.” The fi rst of the new concepts, SYC Te- maki, is set to open in April in the same plaza as the Bronze Empire. There will be no tables; all customers will sit at the sushi bar as the chef prepares hand rolls omakase- style. Next up is one of the most anticipated openings of the year, SYC Blossom, which will fill the former El Chingon space in LoHi. The high-end Asian fusion concept will be more chef-driven than the team’s other restaurants; the team admits that the goal is to earn a Michelin Star. Also on deck is SYC Omakase in Cherry Creek North and Sushi By SYC in Broomfi eld. SYC Concepts is very much Crossland’s baby. She has custom nails with SYC appli- ques, a branded SYC jeweled pin on her suit lapel, and an SYC phone case and key chain; the logo is also on her phone lock screen. “All my time is on SYC,” she says with a nervous laugh. Is she scared? “Yes.” Were you scared when you opened up Miya Moon? “No.” What about Mikaku? “No, not at all.” It’s impressive — twenty years in the business and if the team did nothing more, the company would be sitting pretty. But with SYC, ONRG is showing that scrappy entrepreneurial spirit: If you don’t adapt, your competition will eat you. “It’s the next chapter for our company,” says Choi. “We want to be known not just for sushi and Chinese restaurants throughout Colorado, but also elevated restaurants in Colorado. ... Then in two or three years, we’ll go out of state.” Contact the author at [email protected]. CAFE FIND MORE FOOD & DRINK COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/RESTAURANTS OCRG opened Mikaku Ramen & Temaki in Aurora in February. ONE CONCEPT RESTAURANT GROUP
