08/31/2026
Storytelling: Why did we decide to open a Poké Bar?
Another STORY TIME 📖
Before 2016, authentic Hawaiian poké was virtually unheard of in Vancouver.
Having grown up splitting my time between Vancouver and Honolulu, poké was at the centre of all of my childhood memories. And after Camy and I met, I wanted to share the beautiful islands and my favourite Hawaiian comfort food with her.
There was only one problem, Camy did not eat raw fish.
After a lot of convincing, I got Camy to agree to trying poké, and we made it our first stop in Hawaii.
And guess what?
She loved it!
After we came back to Vancouver from that trip, we had a budding dream of sharing our beloved comfort food with the city we call home.
Coming from a background in sales, I didn’t know the first thing about running a restaurant. I only knew how to make great poké. That meant starting completely from scratch: asking questions about menus, figuring out equipment, navigating commercial spaces, and trying to reverse-engineer how to build a food business.
When we finally opened our doors at Simon Fraser University in January 2017, the reality of juggling a brand-new business alongside the rest of life hit hard. For the first eight months, I didn‘t just run the shop…
I kept my full-time day job while trying to build our dream. I would balance corporate work commitments, rush to support the restaurant, and learn the ins and outs of the food industry through sheer grit and long hours.
Looking back, those days of running on empty and stepping into entirely unfamiliar territory were daunting. But seeing how deeply people connected with a taste of my childhood made every sacrifice worth it. It gave me the courage to finally leave my career behind, dive into Steve’s Poké Bar full-time, and lay the groundwork for what would eventually grow into a community spanning dozens of locations.
