"It was Oct. 2022 when I met founders Phil Libin and Tammy Sun in person for the first time. The two of them-who had started dating after they both left the company Libin ran until 2015, Evernote-packed up everything during the pandemic and left San Francisco. They, like me, ended up in Bentonville, a miniature city in the Northwest corner of Arkansas, where the two of them now run their respective tech companies remotely: Sun's fertility health services startup Carrot and Libin's virtual meeting company mmhmm and startup studio All Turtles."
"Over wine and several plates at a farm-to-table restaurant off the Bentonville square, the three of us tossed around a short list of items we missed about Big City-life. For Libin and Sun, a top item on that list was excellent Japanese food. In true fashion of Silicon Valley roots, Libin and Sun told me they figured they could solve this problem themselves: by starting a company. Since our dinner, the two of them-and seven other cofounders they pulled into the project-have launched a new restaurant concept from their new hometown."
""Like most things in my life-it sort of started out as a joke, the idea that we would start a restaurant," Libin told me in an interview earlier this week. "The more I talked about it with people, the more people seemed to think it was a good idea." Their new startup, called Bentoville (pronounced "Bento-ville" if you read it too quickly the first time), is planning to open its first brick-and-mortar restaurant location next fall in Bentonville."
"Think Eataly or the food court at Herrods in London-essentially an upscale dining hall that is centrally run but with multiple stations serving a variety of foods. In that restaurant space, they plan to host fine-dining events, bringing in chefs from Japan and other locations to do short-term dinner events, like Ja"
Phil Libin and Tammy Sun met in Bentonville after leaving San Francisco during the pandemic. They and other cofounders created Bentoville to address a lack of excellent Japanese food in their new location. The concept began as a joke and gained support as more people agreed it was a good idea. Bentoville plans to open a first brick-and-mortar restaurant in Bentonville next fall. The venue is designed as an upscale dining hall with centralized operations and multiple stations offering different foods. It will also host fine-dining events featuring visiting chefs from Japan and other places for short-term dinner experiences.
#japanese-cuisine #restaurant-startup #bentonville-arkansas #fine-dining-events #multi-station-dining-hall
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