New restaurant and rooftop deck are eyed for empty San Jose building<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWe always had the plan from the start to have two locations. It just took a lot longer to negotiate with the landlord for the second one,\u201d Vink said. \u201cWe feel confident that we\u2019ll have success there. It\u2019s a busy area. We\u2019re definitely more visible from the street.\u201d<\/p>\n
The abrupt closure of three Armadillo Willy\u2019s in late June set Vink in motion. \u201cI had to buy it,\u201d he said, or lose his favorite sandwich, pit-smoked chicken \u2014 which he\u2019d eaten for years while working at Apple and Google. \u201cWe moved fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Armadillo chain had downsized to one location, in Foster City.<\/p>\n
Vink negotiated a bankruptcy court sale and a new lease on the El Camino Real property and partnered with restaurant veteran Ousmane Barry, who was general manager of the Santa Clara Willy\u2019s. They renamed the place Empire Armadillo BBQ & Deli, which reflects both the Texas barbecue side of the menu and the new New York City-inspired deli sandwiches.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we first opened, our pastrami was from a supplier, then we moved to brining our own,\u201d Barry said. \u201cThe new pastrami tastes great. We\u2019re really happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it comes to the bestsellers on the Sunnyvale menu, barbecue reigns. The brisket plate and brisket sandwich are the most popular, Barry said. \u201cAnd then ribs come in number two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also popular is a new dessert inspired by Barry\u2019s years working in New York restaurants\u00a0 \u2014 a Southern-style banana pudding revised to appeal to West Coast palates.<\/p>\n
As for side dishes, they\u2019re all back on the menu, from the spicy peanut slaw to the cornbread muffins served with honey cinnamon butter.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are thanking us all the time for opening,\u201d Vink said. \u201cWhen they see my picture on the wall from the Mercury News article, they say, \u2018Oh, thank you for reopening! We missed this place so much.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Details: The Sunnyvale location is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily at 161 E. El Camino Real; www.empirearmadillo.com\/\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Vink may be the best friend a slab of brisket ever had. The engineer-turned-entrepreneur who reopened Sunnyvale\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,387,7,181,100,182,88,90,89,198,2280,200,203],"class_list":{"0":"post-52810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-bay-area","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pm-report","14":"tag-san-jose","15":"tag-san-jose-headlines","16":"tag-san-jose-news","17":"tag-santa-clara-county","18":"tag-silicon-valley","19":"tag-south-bay","20":"tag-sunnyvale"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}