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    Success stories

    A man, a plan, a restaurant: How Kevin Naderi opened Roost with a little luckfrom Craigslist

    Sarah Rufca
    Nov 3, 2012 | 11:30 am
    • Naderi in the kitchen at Roost, where the chef/owner/landlord changes the menuevery three weeks.
      Photo by © Billy Knox
    • Roost is small, with only 58 seats, but Naderi says he likes the intimacy.
      Photo by © Billy Knox
    • Roost opened in the old Latina cafe space on Fairview in December 2011.
      Photo by © Billy Knox
    • Naderi acts as his own prep cook during the day and manages the dining roomduring dinner service.
      Photo by © Billy Knox
    • Naderi's "Rustic American fare" in the kitchen at Roost.
      Photo by © Billy Knox

    Kevin Naderi was looking for an apartment and planning to open a taco truck when he found the building that would become both his home and his business — on Craigslist.

    At 25, Naderi was itching to get out of his parents' house — "You know, when you're Persian, you're there 'til you're like 40," — and found a vague listing for a space available on Fairview. Walking into the former Latina Cafe, he discovered that it wasn't an apartment that was available, it was the entire building, including four residential units and a street level restaurant space.

    Naderi got a loan from his parents and within weeks he was both a restaurant owner and a landlord (and the proud owner of his own apartment, conveniently located right above Roost).

    Naderi likes to say that he was lucky to find it. But as the Romans said, fortune favors the bold.

     Roost opened to immediate excitement in December 2011, impressive considering Naderi had a relatively low profile as a sous chef at Haven and didn't have a splashy designer space or PR team — just a collage of recycled shutters he nailed to the walls himself and an active Facebook page on which he would post pictures and menus.

     

    "The fact that we don't rip people off is big," says Naderi.

    "We opened around the time when Triniti came up, Underbelly was in the works, Oxheart was in the works, Uchi had just opened, all these places probably average at least $60 to $150 a person per check. I wanted to do something where you could come two to three times a week instead of two to three times a year," says Naderi. "The fact that we don't rip people off is big."

    From the wait list to the wine list, Roost often feels like a one man show. During the day Naderi is sweating it out in the kitchen (Roost doesn't have a prep cook) but during service he leaves the cooking to his crew and manages the dining room, controlling the crowd and keeping an eye on his guests.

    "I wish I had two sous chefs and a floor manager and a sommelier and a pastry chef. I'd be kicking ass," Naderi says. "But I opened this place by myself. If you want to talk to a manager, it's me; you want to talk to the chef, you talk to me. I do all the purchasing, all the ordering, pay the bills. It's tough keeping up with all this stuff. I have a ton of grey hairs now," says the 26-year-old.

    With raves for his rustic, locally focused food and the intimate, unfussy dining room, Roost has modernized the neighborhood restaurant with an ever-changing menu.

    "We have a lot of regulars and the fact that we change the menu every three weeks is a huge plus. They aren't eating the same thing twice," says Naderi. "I think as a neighborhood restaurant you can do more of what you want. Being such a small place, it's easy to explain to tables, 'We're trying this out, we're trying that out.' If you're a big commercial restaurant you have to stick to what people know."

     

    "I think as a neighborhood restaurant you can do more of what you want. Being such a small place, it's easy to explain to tables, 'We're trying this out, we're trying that out.'"

    "A lot of people do braised beef ribs; we'll do braised beef cheeks. It's kind of the same idea but a little different and people can try something new. And when I tell them it's just like barbacoa tacos, they're like, 'Oh, I love barbacoa."

    Just under a year in, Naderi admits there have been some bumps along the way. The service window between the dining room and the kitchen was originally where Naderi planned to expedite dishes, but by week one he realized "no one wants to sit next to you when you're messing with plates."

    An early BYOB option (started while he was waiting for the restaurant's liquor license to come through) was also scrapped because Naderi couldn't afford to have his limited tables full of customers that weren't ordering more than an appetizer.

    Still, Naderi says that he can't imagine his restaurant any other way.

    "I love the size. Sometimes people are like, 'Are you going to expand this, make it bigger?' But I'm grandfathered, so if I knock down a wall I'm screwed," he says. "I think the size is cool. People like the quaintness of it. Sometimes people get too big for their britches and want to do three or four restaurants right away. I'm like, let's chill for a minute, hit the one year mark and see what's going on."

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    roll out

    Self-taught chef slices into Houston with high-quality sushi to go

    Eric Sandler
    Jul 17, 2025 | 5:57 pm
    Kaisen Sushi Houston nigiri
    Courtesy of Kaisen Sushi Houston
    Each order of nigiri comes with a house made sushi sauce.

    The ghost kitchen phenomenon may have diminished somewhat since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the idea of a delivery and to-go-only restaurant still draws talented chefs who want to focus on food at a lower overhead than a traditional brick-and-mortar. One of those chefs is Sunny Bertsch, whose restaurant Kaisen Sushi Houston is already drawing buzz from inner loopers looking for a more affordable, at-home sushi experience.

    Located at the Blodgett Food Hall in Third Ward, Kaisen Sushi serves typical nigiri, maki, and temaki (hand rolls), along with a steak bowl. Prices are a little lower than what someone would find at a typical sushi restaurant, with an eight-piece nigiri set priced at $18.99 when ordered through the Blodgett Food Hall website (expect to pay more if ordering via a third-party delivery service such as Uber Eats or DoorDash).

    While Bertsch’s food may be familiar, his story is not. The diners who’ve rated Kaisen with 4.9 stars on Google may be surprised to learn that he’s only been cooking professionally for two years. As Bertsch tells CultureMap, prior to becoming a professional chef, he worked in fields as varied as aerospace and dog walking.

    “I’d always been interested in cooking,” he says. “I was blessed to be born into a great Korean American family. My dad and my grandparents always cooked great food. I learned by osmosis.”

    Bertsch began his career as a private chef by working for friends. He built his business by catering lunches to powerhouse law firm Vinson & Elkins. Eventually, his clients asked for private sushi dinners, and he had to figure things out.

    “I got an opportunity to do a sushi omakase. It was brutal. It was messy. But I knew once I did that, I wanted to dedicate my life to sushi,” he says. “Since then, I have studied and practiced. I threw a lot of money and time and fish at it.”

    Bertsch improved his speed and knife skills by taking a $13-per-hour job at Japanese grocery store Seiwa Market. While there, he says he made thousands of pieces of nigiri, rolls, and sushi bowls. That experience, along with meals from similar to-go-only concepts in New York and San Francisco, convinced him to open Kaisen as a ghost kitchen.

    “So far, I’ve spent $90,000. That’s more than the average investment for a food hall kitchen,” Bertsch explains. “I’m a clean freak. I’m a technology freak. I’m an authenticity freak. I outfitted my kitchen in the way I thought was necessary for long-term success.”

    Just as he spared no expense in specing out his kitchen, Bertsch puts thoughtful touches into his food, too. For example, every order of nigiri comes with a dipping sauce Bertsch makes himself from low sodium soy sauce, kombu, vinegar, and sake.

    “It’s a complex sauce that’s less salty and tastes good,” he says. “You know when you don’t have it and you’re given cheap soy sauce.”

    Similarly, his California rolls use imitation crab (as do most restaurants), but it’s seasoned with a housemade, Japanese-style kewpie mayo, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and sesame oil for more umami and less sweetness. Since the chef uses more crab mix than other restaurants do in their rolls, Kaisen’s California roll not only tastes better — at $11.99, it’s a better value, too.

    The chef showcases Japanese techniques and Korean influences with his $25 steak bowl. A USDA Choice ribeye or strip is cooked sous vide with a marinade made from garlic, tamari, and seasoning salt. Once a diner orders the entree, the steak is seared in a pan, basted with Kerrygold butter, seasoned with furikake and sesame oil, and served with short-grain sushi rice and microgreens from local farm Zero Point Organics.

    Word of mouth has been building. Even though it’s only been open for a month, Kaisen already has over 2,000 followers on Instagram. Once he’s able to hire a full roster of cooks, Bertsch plans to expand the menu and offer lunch service. Despite some challenges, he’s pleased with the restaurant’s progress.

    “The support I've gotten on social media has blown me away,” he says. “It’s been amazing. I could not have done it without Instagram. It blows my mind.”

    Kaisen Sushi Houston nigiri
      

    Courtesy of Kaisen Sushi Houston

    Each order of nigiri comes with a house made sushi sauce.

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