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Oyo restaurant’s owner and head chef Maurice Dissels is bringing the British side of his Guyanese culture to the Tri-Valley with his newest restaurant: Union Jack Lounge and Kitchen.
Modeled after authentic British pubs, the downtown Pleasanton restaurant offers traditional British cuisine like fish and chips, pies (that he’s still developing) and a sticky toffee pudding recipe inspired by Dissel’s grandma — which he said could go viral.
“I was able to come up with one that I thought ‘yeah, this one transports me back enough to my childhood,'” the restaurateur told the Weekly.
While his other downtown restaurant Oyo offers South American cuisine, Dissels said this new business venture came mostly out of the blue as he previously had no intentions or even ambitions of opening a British pub in Pleasanton.
“It was predicated largely on the location,” Dissels said.
He said he had befriended the owners of the Gilman Brewing Company — which was the previous business that occupied the space at 706 Main St. — and over time he had worked with the brewery on creating a menu for them based on the food he served at Oyo.
But as time went on, Dissels said the brewery’s owners “weren’t committed to the space” and that they wanted to sell.
“When we had an opportunity to acquire the locations we immediately set out to get a name, a concept and then everything just aligned,” Dissels said.
After finalizing the purchase in January, he was able to launch Union Jack Lounge and Kitchen.
Dissels said he went with a British pub concept because he wanted to go back to his British roots being from Guyana, which was a British colony until 1966. He grew up eating a lot of British cuisine prepared by his grandmother and he wanted to bring some of that food to the Tri-Valley.
“It came natural to me so we thought lets just put a British pub in there,” he said.
He even went as far as travelling to London for 10 days in February to further immerse himself in the culture and bring some inspiration back to his new business venture.
As far as the name goes, Dissels said he wanted to give a nod to the old Union Jack pub, which was located in front of his pub on 725 Main St. before it shuttered in 2013.
Since the purchase, Dissels said he and his team have mainly been redecorating, finalizing the menu and, more importantly, slowly working out the kinks of service and building connections with new customers.
He said that’s one of the main reasons why they haven’t been as vocal about their opening and why they are still technically in the soft opening phase, even as more and more new customers pay them a visit.
“It gives us time to get familiar with the flow and train our staff and connect to the community and the guests who are coming in a more meaningful way as opposed to some grand opening,” Dissels said.
Eventually, he said he’s open to having a grand opening ceremony, ribbon cutting and full roll out of the new restaurant. But for now, Dissels said what’s important is interacting with every table that comes in, getting feedback from guests and building those relationships.
Currently, the restaurant is open from 4 to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, and from 4 to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Dissels noted that he is working toward extending their hours on the weekends and opening at noon so they can implement new things on the menu, like a full English breakfast. He said they are already doing a Sunday roast, which is another traditional British breakfast, but he wants to start serving those dishes earlier and on Saturdays as well.
