Hero Shop Serves its Last Sandwich Downtown This Friday

Downtown's Hero Shop is getting vanquished this Friday.

Started just around a year ago by Black Hogg principals Eric Park and Jonathan Kim, the walk-in shop on 6th Street stuck mostly to classier versions of the traditional Vietnamese banh mi sandwich, though sides like sambal broccolini and coconut rice bowls were also popular. In the evenings, the shop’s alter-ego Yero Shop would show up, serving halal cart chicken and rice, straight out of the metal tin like on the streets of New York City.

Park says that the shutter wasn’t for lack of business — the place had become a popular casual dining option Downtown, and in some ways helped to bridge the gap between Skid Row and the pricier places up the street. Instead, ownership thinks that there’s a better concept for the space: poké. Of course, the city has gone nuts for the stuff over the past few months, but Park believes he can source better product and craft tastier bowls than the competition (of which there is none in Downtown).

It’s been interesting to watch Kim and Park work various permutations of their other restaurant in Silver Lake, Black Hogg, over the years. Once an animal-focused, almost over-the-top restaurant with minimal signage, the Sunset Boulevard eatery has in more recent times become something subtler and suitable for the neighborhood, even turning their daytime hours into a takeout sandwich operation known as Soppressata.

So how will the locals take to the poké shop? It's impossible to say until sometime in mid-July, when the storefront plans to relaunch.