Noodle in a Haystack

01/02/2024

Happy New Year 🎊 明けましておめでとうございます🎍 We just got back from a whirlwind trip back to Japan and wanted to thank everyone for the most INCREDIBLE, unfathomable last year🙏🏻 It was one for the record books that I doubt we can EVER top🤯

Making both the Top 24 & The Restaurant List, being added to the - 2023 will always be the year that put us on THE map and frankly, gave us more organic press and publicity than we would ever know how to use in a lifetime.

But all those awards and accolades coincided with us loosing our ❤️ Toto during the summer which made it almost impossible to celebrate. She was our 1st baby, our heart & soul, the best pup we could ever deserve, and genuinely the reason we decided to stay in SF & open the restaurant (we couldn’t move back to Tokyo during the pandemic with her heart condition.) Thinking about all of this in retrospect still brings tears to our eyes, but in the purest form of kismet, all of this was made possible because of her.

This wasn’t the post we wanted to announce her passing, but it just felt right to honor her for being in our lives.

For all the unwavering love and support, the accolades, 2023 and beyond, and Toto being in our lives - we are so thankful for it all.

We’re not sure what 2024 holds for us. We still dream of building something sustainable, a tiny restaurant in Japan, and maybe our very own Japanese instant noodle collab😂 We’ll see if we can check any of these things off by the end of the year

09/13/2023

So excited to announce we were just selected by as one of The 24 Best New Restaurants in America 2023!!!
Daaaaamn - might be the craziest thing yet for our little shop?!? We’re absolutely floored right now in between shopping and cleaning chickens for soup😂.

When we took over the space in 2021, never in our wildest imaginations, could we picture ourselves like THIS with the 4 plugs and janky prep tables we had to call a kitchen. It’s still not much of a kitchen, but we’re proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish working with these extreme constraints and dedicating ourselves to doing the best with what we have while focusing on the people and simply making food we love to eat ourselves.

Thank you to all our purveyors who help make this possible. Huge shoutout to Sam Stone from and for the wonderful photos. Also much love and for taking time out to be interviewed in our article and also to EVERYone of you guys who have willed this ridiculous pipe dream into reality!

05/14/2023

June Ticket Release on Tock at 9pm Tonight! - *|https://www.exploretock.com/noodleinahaystack|*

01/06/2023

WOW, 2022 was an INSANE year for us! We’re humbled and don’t have the words to convey how grateful we are for all the incredible support. Literally zero marketing, and the power of organic honest to goodness word of mouth. We wouldn’t be here without ya’ll!!

It’s been a little more than half a year since we started cooking again and somehow we’ve been able to accomplish things we could never have dreamed of when we innocently started cooking at home for fun after moving back here from Japan in 2014.

Nothing has come easy and we’re still rolling with the punches. We don’t know what shape or form the restaurant will take in 2023 as we continue to learn, grow, and aim for sustainability, but stay tuned, hope to keep things exciting!!

Huge thanks for blowing us up🔊:

10/02/2022

Wow! So blown away by this amazing write up by tablehopper - Marcia did such an amazing job of summarizing our journey up until this point!!

05/24/2022

Recent write up in Eater SF! Just wish they didn’t focus so much on the whole OMG it’s a “$125 Ramen shop” because we aren’t really a ramen shop… we just happen to serve some ramen!

Noodle in a Haystack hopes to open in late summer of 2022

05/05/2022

tablehopper has got the first scoop and update on our soft open, open progress, and menu!!!

04/25/2022

We’ve officially just released some soft open dates through June!

Bookings can be made on our Tock website, tentative menu info is also available by clicking on the menu link on the site.

Looking forward to welcoming you guys for a preview of our new space🙏🏼

Cult ramen pop-up’s first brick & mortar. Experience an exclusive hyper intimate tasting menu centered around ramen at Yoko and Clint’s new 12 seat counter space.

04/15/2022

We are so overjoyed and relieved to finally unveil our new space!! After a crazy week of stress testing, we realized the kitchen still needs a few things. We expect things to be very erratic during these early months, but we’re excited to announce a tentative schedule soon.

It’s been an incredibly aggravating & arduous 10+ months since we took over the space in mid 2021. I wish I could have provided more frequent updates, but it got to a point where I didn’t have the bandwidth to even use social media anymore. Each and every day the opening delayed, added to the already overwhelming weight on our shoulders. We couldn’t have done this without all of your love, support, and unwavering patience. Please give us just a bit more, until we can welcome you into our new home!

11/14/2021

We were hoping we’d be the top story on the Chronicle for our food, but this is where we’ve been at for the last few months.

To be perfectly honest, we originally had no intention of doing this story, but realized as we continued to push forward, that we had to.

By all accounts, going by typical SF standards, all we’ve heard is “we’re lucky it’s only been 6 months / only spent $100k / it might take 1yr+.” It dawned on me that everyone here has been conditioned to believe that this is the norm for opening a small business in San Francisco. But why? What kind of small restaurant makes sense anymore after all of these hurdles and barriers?

Customers raved about their Noodle in a Haystack pop-up, so Yoko and Clint Tan tried...

06/11/2021

Today’s AMAZING KQED article really captures our journey thus far. All to top off another crazy week as we’re enveloped in renovation while educating ourselves on the joys of 3 compartment sinks, permitting, and liabilities😵‍💫

Noodle in a Haystack will bring its critically acclaimed, internationally recognized ramen to the Inner Richmond.

06/06/2021

We don’t have the vocabulary to thank you all for the unwavering support! Once the pandemic hit, I intentionally stopped posting on IG after experiencing one of the highest highs in this crazy adventure of ours. I made peace with the fact that this could have been the end of this chapter in our lives. What a perfect way to go right???

THAT WAS until this INSANE last week. We’re still reeling from the events - a HUGE story in San Francisco Chronicle & Chronicle Food, the Kickstarter 🚀 to the moon, and the gut punch of trying to navigate renovating and opening our very 1st brick & mortar in SF. We have huge challenges ahead and expect things to get even harder, but our hearts are full with the love you’ve gifted us🙏🏼 thank you for the amazing story BTW, does anywhere know where to get a real newspaper?😆