Realizing the American dream

Texas brothers develop custom sushi for everyone with How Do You Roll?"fast-casual" restaurants

"An entrepreneur is somebody that has a vision of what the future is before it exists… and then has the drive, need and desire to make that vision a reality," says Yuen Yung, the Austin-based CEO and co-founder of How Do You Roll? sushi company.

Remarkably, Yuen's vision for a "fast-casual" custom sushi shop was strong enough to see its inception through the financial crisis of 2008. Yuen, rising in the ranks at a comfortable corporate job, often found himself lamenting the lack of healthy, quick lunch options to his brother Peter, a sushi chef at a fine dining restaurant in Houston, when they realized a risky but exciting restaurant opportunity lie at their feet — HDYR?.

So what's the favorite custom sushi roll of a man with such a unique fusion of personal tastes? Traditional seaweed on white rice with traditional California Roll ingredients — with a smattering of fresh fruit and a sprinkling of hot chili powder, of course.

Together, the Yungs became accustomed to overcoming adversity in the name of establishing HDYR?, including a particularly devastating draining of financial resources.

"We knew it was going to be tough — all the banks ran away [in 2008]" explains Yuen. "So when that happened, we had to come up with our own capital. It was not an easy time. I still remember very vividly the afternoon I told my wife, 'Hey honey, I just cashed out our final IRA.'"

The enormous risk paid off due to the Yungs' innovative concept to rethink sushi ("When we first started, people said we were blasphemous to traditional sushi," Yuen says, referring to unique menu items like fruit or cooked meats), as well as their steadfast commitment to honoring their values as much as their business plan.

"In business you have to stay humble, because it's definitely survival of the fittest," says Yuen. "How I stay grounded is really more of an understanding of who I am as a person and what are my values. So I spend a lot of time working on myself with my own family mission, my family core values — first and foremost I have to be a good husband, son, father, brother."

In other words, the business is simply another avenue by which to build the unwavering character Yuen says his family is made of.

"I do spend a lot of time thinking about the sacrifices made from my family's perspective [in] coming to this country, being first generation, and what it takes to live the American dream. My sense of responsibility really comes from that," he explains.

The company has expanded to 16 How Do You Roll? nationwide, with 10 in Texas, including one in the downtown Houston tunnel underneath Commerce Tower at 914 Main St.

So what's the favorite custom sushi roll of a man with such a varied history and unique fusion of personal tastes? Traditional seaweed on white rice with traditional California Roll ingredients — with a smattering of fresh fruit and a sprinkling of hot chili powder, of course.

Jobs report

Texas clocks in as No. 7 best state to find a job, new report says

Job interview, work

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

It's easier to find a job in Texas than in nearly any other state.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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