Onigilly’s founder on knowing when it’s time for a brand reset
Take-Away with Sam Oches
Nation's Restaurant News
4.9 • 17 Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Take-Away with Sam Oches, Sam talks with Koji Kanematsu, founder of Onigilly Japanese Kitchen, a San Francisco based franchise introducing Americans to the rice ball snack onigiri. He joined the podcast to talk about the brand’s humble beginnings as a food cart, how he had to completely rethink his product to adapt to American palates, and how COVID forced him to focus on a new growth strategy — much to the brand’s benefit.
In this conversation, you’ll find out why:
- Great brands can start in the smallest of footprints
- Manually operating your brand from the start is the best way to know its true potential
- It’s better to adapt your product to the market rather than wait for the other way around
- You should embrace the opportunity for a brand reset
- If you believe in your brand, you can’t afford to quit
Register for CREATE, our event for emerging restaurateurs, by clicking here.
Have feedback or ideas for Take-Away? Email Sam at sam.oches@informa.com.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Takeaway with Sam Ocas, a podcast for leaders of growing restaurant companies looking |
| 0:04.5 | to take their businesses to the next level. In nearly two decades covering restaurants, I've gained |
| 0:09.7 | access to some of the industry's most influential decision makers, and I'm letting you in on the |
| 0:14.5 | conversations. In today's episode, you'll learn from a restaurant founder why you sometimes have to |
| 0:19.2 | make a hard pivot on your product |
| 0:21.0 | and your growth strategy and why a brand reset could be just the ticket you need to a more |
| 0:26.6 | profitable future. Koji Kenamatsu is the founder of Onagili Japanese Kitchen, a San Francisco-based |
| 0:33.5 | franchise introducing Americans to the rice ball snack Onagiri. He joined the podcast to talk |
| 0:39.1 | about the brand's humble beginnings as a food cart, how he had to completely rethink his |
| 0:44.1 | product to adapt to American palettes, and how COVID forced him to focus on a new growth strategy, |
| 0:50.5 | much to the brand's benefit. If you learn anything from this episode, follow takeaway wherever you listen and leave some |
| 0:56.7 | feedback. |
| 0:57.4 | It's the best way to get that lesson to a fellow restaurant leader. |
| 1:00.9 | Jumping now into my interview with Onagilly's Koji Kenamatsu. |
| 1:04.4 | Don't forget to stick around after the interview, as I will share my five takeaways |
| 1:07.5 | from this discussion, actionable insights that you can take with you on the go. |
| 1:14.5 | All right, I'm sitting down with Koji Kenimatsu of Onagilly Japanese Kitchen. Koji, thanks for sitting down |
| 1:21.6 | with me today. Yeah, thank you for having me. Absolutely. So Koji, I know you've got a pretty |
| 1:26.7 | remarkable story of building this brand and |
| 1:29.4 | a lot of potential ahead of Onegilly that I want to get into. But I guess I just have to start with |
| 1:35.9 | your own personal story. Have you always been in food? What's your story? How'd you get into food? |
| 1:42.1 | So actually, I was in tech industry before I came into. |
... |
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