For three years, many drivers passing the Poke Serrano building on Southern Boulevard have asked, “When is that place opening?” Finally, they have an answer: Poke Serrano will finally open its doors on Dec. 27 at 3755 Southern Blvd SE.
Robert Punya, owner of Poki Poki Cevicheria since its inception in May 2016 and owner of The Sweet Cup since 2018, has been working since 2020 to get his latest creation, Poke Serrano, open. “We got the building in 2020. Basically in COVID, like at the beginning of it, and then COVID hit, obviously, and so that slowed down a lot of stuff,” Punya said. “But then we just had one contractor after another kind of fell short on the project. It got to a place where the big companies were like, ‘Hey, if you want us to take over, then we’d have to scrap the whole thing because we don’t want to take over other people’s work and claim it as our own., So we couldn’t do that because we were already in the process. So we just kept hiring contractors here and there, and some worked and some didn’t.”
After all that, Poke Serrano is set to open with an elevated concept focused on Asian fusion. It will offer ramen, stir fry, tacos and more. Sweet Cup is located in a separate part of the restaurant and offers self-serve frozen yogurt with toppings, pastries, scratch-made desserts, espresso, boba, cheesecakes and macarons.
“Our dessert concept, that’s tied to the restaurant, but just we kind of wanted a food hall feel,” Punya said. “So it’s like, I’ll sit down at a table here. Let me get a drink. Let me get some food. Let me get some desserts.”
Poke Serrano also has a full bar, but Punya says the restaurant is very family friendly.
“A lot of our staff live up here, so they’re neighborhood residents and they’re like,’Dude, so many of our neighbors, so many of my family are just excited that you guys are finally open,'” Punya said. “There’s a couple places with full bars, but we’re more like a family-friendly, sit-down place than like a dive bar or something.”
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