Patrick Pham didn’t set out to build a restaurant empire.
When Pham and his business partner, Daniel Lee, opened Kokoro in Houston in 2019, there was no carefully mapped-out plan for what would eventually become Duckstache Hospitality. There was simply the immediate challenge familiar to any new restaurateur: keep the dining room busy, take care of the staff, and make sure the bills get paid.
“If I told you this was all planned from the beginning, I’d be lying,” Pham says. “We took it one month at a time and focused on making sure we could stay busy enough to pay our staff and our bills.”
Then came Handies Douzo. The intimate hand roll concept debuted in the Heights in December 2019, and its reception gave Pham the first real indication that what he and his partners were building could stretch beyond a single restaurant.
“That was really the moment we started to see what this could become,” he says.
In the years since, Duckstache Hospitality has grown well beyond those early days, expanding its portfolio with concepts including Kokoro, Handies Douzo, Aiko, and Doko, while stretching its footprint beyond Houston and even overseas to Dubai. Yet Pham says that growth has required him to do something that can be particularly difficult for a chef: step away from doing everything himself.
“I learned that in order to grow with Duckstache Hospitality, I had to let it go as well,” he admits. “Let the team grow with the company and take more charge with the day-to-day operations in the kitchen.”
That transition wasn’t immediate. Pham describes it as a learning process, made easier as Duckstache added people he could trust to take greater ownership of the restaurants. He may no longer spend every service behind the sushi counter, but he hasn’t abandoned the kitchen entirely.
“Every once in a while you might find me in the restaurants on the line during service!” he teases. Where exactly? Even Pham can’t predict that. “It’s like roulette,” he says. “You never know because even I don’t know.”
Taking Houston Hospitality Around the World
Expanding beyond Houston has presented a different education. Pham says operating in new markets has taught him that a restaurant can’t simply arrive somewhere new and expect diners to immediately understand it. While the fundamentals of Duckstache remain intact, sometimes the approach has to change.
“I’ve learned to go with the flow and, more importantly, to quickly adjust to what people are familiar with,” he says. “Sometimes you have to meet people where they are just to get them through the door and give them a chance to try your food.”
Once diners do, he says, the restaurant gets its opportunity to demonstrate what sets it apart. It’s a philosophy that also helps explain the atmosphere at Duckstache restaurants. Pham takes the food seriously, but he doesn’t believe dining around it needs to feel solemn.
“I personally don’t enjoy feeling like I have to be on my best behavior when I’m out eating with friends or family,” he says. “I want to be able to laugh, be loud, have a good time, and make memories.”
For Pham, that energy is part of the meal itself. His goal is to create restaurants where carefully prepared Japanese food can coexist with a lively dining room—a place where guests can “let loose” and enjoy themselves.
Sushi Is 90 Percent Prep
This week, DiningOut readers will get to see what keeping all of those restaurants moving actually looks like when Pham takes over DiningOut’s Instagram on Thursday, September 27.
Expect considerably more than a few beauty shots of sushi. Pham plans to document his commute into Houston before bouncing among Duckstache locations, checking in with teams, sitting through meetings, and tackling whatever else lands on his schedule.
“I promise you there isn’t enough time in a day,” he jokes.
The takeover will also pull back the curtain on an element of sushi restaurants that diners rarely witness. According to Pham, what happens before service is just as important as what guests see across the counter.
“Sushi is 90% prep,” he says. “There is so much behind-the-scenes prep that the actual guest won’t see.”
It’s also where he sees the craftsmanship of his teams most clearly. “They have so much respect for their craft,” Pham says. “It’s more than a job.”
That team has become increasingly important as Pham’s own job has expanded. He might be the recognizable face moving from restaurant to restaurant during the takeover, but he hopes viewers finish the day thinking about all the people they met along the way.
“It’s not a one-man show,” he says. “It takes a village, a huge village, to do what Duckstache Hospitality does in a day.”
What Comes Next?
Despite Duckstache’s growth, Pham still doesn’t have a master plan tucked away somewhere.
“Honestly, I don’t even know exactly what the next chapter looks like, and I think that’s the beauty of it,” he says. “We’ve never had every step planned out.”
On the increasingly rare occasion that he gets a night off, he’s still a Houston diner himself—and, by his own admission, “a creature of habit.” Nobie’s, Tiny Champions, and Credence are among his regular stops, though he’s hoping to make it to Angie’s Pizza soon.
As for Duckstache, Pham seems content to approach its future much the way he approached Kokoro back in 2019: stay open to what comes next.
“Some of the best things that have happened have come from simply being open to new opportunities,” he says. “I’m excited to see where it takes us.”
For one day this week, DiningOut followers can come along for the ride. Tune in to DiningOut’s Instagram on Thursday, August 27 to catch Pham in action.
