Korean-born pharmacometrician Sunny Chapel started two businesses last year, a clinical pharmacology consultancy called A2-Ai, and Banh Mi Street Food in the Courtyard Shops. 

The consulting business has taken off and already has seventy employees. That made it difficult for Chapel to devote enough attention to assuring the restaurant’s quality, so she put it on indefinite hiatus.

Vietnamese-born Te Phan, owner of the Ginger Deli on E. Liberty and in U-M Hospital’s cafeteria, could relate: He, too, became a restaurateur after success with an unrelated business, his in the field of automotive design. He felt inspired to reach out to Chapel after reading the Observer’s story and noticing her restaurant was closed.

They didn’t know each other, and Chapel wasn’t ready to discuss any plans, but “I felt a drop of sincerity in that call,” she says. So they had lunch, and a friendship developed over conversations about their lives and love of food. As Phan tells it, at the end of their third get-together, Chapel said she’d be away in California for most of last winter, then reached into her purse and handed him the key to the store.

“We hadn’t really talked about it, anything [business-related],” Phan relates. Chapel suggested he check out the space and consider whether he wanted to make use of it. “That was really, really cool. … She’s like, you know, I trust you.”

Though they haven’t formalized an agreement or exchanged any money, Ginger Deli has now expanded into Banh Mi’s spot in the Courtyard Shops, with new signage and a redesigned interior. Like the others, its menu features the delicate balance of flavors and textures that characterize Vietnamese cuisine, from painstakingly prepared phở to a range of baguette-based banh mi sandwiches.

Chapel and Phan plan to work out the rest of their partnership details in future conversations, probably over more meals together. 

Ginger Deli, 1701 Plymouth Rd. (Courtyard Shops). (734) 369–2506. Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–8 p.m. Closed Sun. gingerdeli.com

Related: Sunny Chapel Is Tired but Happy
Ginger Deli
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