Sandos Head South

Wildly popular Dallas Japanese sandwich pop-up heads to Houston

The sandos taste as good as they look.

Sandoitchi

Dallas' feel-good hit of the summer is popping up in Houston. Sandoitchi will be in the Bayou City for the next three weeks, according to a post on Instagram.

As its name implies, Sandoitchi serves Japanese sandwiches, aka sandos, that are served on milk bread. Fillings include egg salad, Nashville-style hot chicken, pork katsu, and — at least occasionally — Japanese wagyu topped with edible gold and shaved black truffle. For dessert, it offers a sando filled with strawberries and matcha cream.

Another aspect of Sandoitchi's success is its packaging. They come in little boxes, and have stickers. They're trimmed neatly, like finger sandwiches, or like the sandwiches your fantasy mom made where she cut off the crusts.

These sandwiches back up all the branding with some serious culinary firepower. Chef Stevie Nguyen worked at Uchi in both Dallas and Houston before heading to New York where he worked at Momofuku Ko, the two-Michelin-starred crown jewel in superstar chef David Chang's culinary empire. Nguyen shows off his techniques in a number of ways, including by using three different egg preparations to make his egg salad and coating the chicken with an umami-packed "wet shio koji solution."

Sandoitchi only started this summer, but it's won legions of fans who sell out each week's production shortly after they go on sale. After beginning as a pop-up in Dallas, it spent a couple of weeks in California before returning to the Metroplex. The Houston stop is the next step of its statewide tour. Currently, Nguyen and his partners have not announced plans to open a permanent restaurant.

Ordering requires a certain amount of luck and persistence. Sign up on the Sandoitchi website to receive a password. Then be fast enough to order at 6 pm on Thursday, November 5 before the week's allotment sells out. Pickup will take place at a yet-to-be-revealed location in The Heights on Saturday, November 7.

Other restaurants make sandos, of course. B&B Butchers sells a $120 katsu sando made with A5 wagyu from Japan. Kata Robata offers two delicious variations: one made with Texas wagyu beef and another with lobster. Houston's Local Foods in Rice Village makes its own version of an egg salad sando as part of its Japanese-inspired Hapa offerings.

But none of the existing local options have received an Instagram shoutout from Chrissy Teigen, so clearly Sandoitchi has created something worth trying.

View this post on Instagram

The guys from the incredible @sando.itchi just taught john to make me their famous Japanese egg sandwich - delivered to my bed 😩 thank you so much Elie @foodbeast for helping set this up! I slid into the DM’s hard when they posted about them and it all worked out! Can’t wait to show you guys on @cravingsbychrissyteigen

A post shared by chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) on

Sep 17, 2020 at 3:26pm PDT

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PIZZA PROBLEMS

Plano-based Pizza Hut to close 250 restaurants as U.S. sales plummet

Pizza Hut/Facebook

Pizza Hut will close 250 restaurants by mid-2026.

By the middle of the year, the country will have fewer Pizza Huts. Yum! Brands, the parent company of the almost 70-year-old chain, announced it plans to close an estimated 250 restaurants — about 4 percent of Pizza Hut's massive global footprint.

The closures were revealed during Yum's fourth quarter earnings call on February 4. While Yum! Brands is based in Louisville, Kentucky, Pizza Hut is headquartered in Plano.

Yum! representatives said that U.S. Pizza Hut store sales slid 3 percent as value initiatives, like the $5 Crafted Flatzz personal pizza, have failed to take hold with customers, who are increasingly spending their pizza budget at rival Domino’s.

In November 2025, Yum! Brands announced that it would launch a “formal review of strategic options,” a program called “Hut Forward,” which officials said could result in a global reduction in the number of Pizza Hut outlets or an eventual sale of the concept.

“The Pizza Hut team has been working hard to address business and category challenges; however, Pizza Hut’s performance indicates the need to take additional action to help the brand realize its full value, which may be better executed outside of Yum! Brands,” said Chris Turner, CEO of Yum! Brands, in a previous press release.

It’s unclear how any such sale would affect the franchise’s Plano headquarters. The corporation is currently in the process of moving KFC, which has been experiencing its own financial struggles, from Kentucky to its Plano home base.

In recent years, the overall pizza landscape has been rocky for national chains. Concepts like Papa John’s, Blaze Pizza, and Mod Pizza have closed units as dining shifts increasingly to favor more “interesting” concepts like Nashville-style hot chicken. In early January, the Wall Street Journal reported that pizzerias are no longer the second most popular chain format in the U.S., plummeting below Mexican restaurants and coffee shops to sixth place.

Although Pizza Hut has not disclosed exactly which locations would be shuttering, it did say it expects to wrap up the closure round by the middle of 2026.

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