Sunny Chapel has already started two very different companies in 2023— her second consultancy as a pharmacometrician and her first restaurant. Banh Mi Street Food in the Courtyard Shops offers fast Vietnamese sandwiches and Korean noodle and rice dishes from a menu she developed herself.
“I have never been physically challenged like this, working like sixteen hours a day, every freaking single day,” she confides about her latest regimen. “But I am happy.”
“My love of food and the energy toward food has been building up,” Chapel says. “At some point I needed an outlet.”
Born and raised in South Korea, Chapel developed a fondness for the Midwest while earning her doctorate at Iowa. “If somebody just on the street asks me where I’m from, I always say I’m from Iowa. I see their jaw drop,” she laughs.
Pharamacometricians use statistical modeling to inform optimal dosing for new drugs, thus accelerating their development. Chapel’s career in the industry took her to New Jersey and California, but she “missed the Midwest to death” and moved here in 2004 for a job at Pfizer. At the time it had “the model group in my field,” she recalls.
She thought she’d eventually retire from Pfizer, but its Ann Arbor facilities closed in 2007, so instead she opened the pharmaceutical consulting firm A2PG. It grew over the years and was acquired by Amador Bioscience in 2021, providing her a measure of financial security. This year she launched a full-service clinical pharmacology consultancy called A2-Ai, and her team has been working in the unit behind Banh Mi (formerly Midwest Bike & Tandem) until its permanent office is ready.
“My love of food and the energy toward food has been building up. At some point I needed an outlet,” Chapel explains. “My way of relieving stress is cooking, and I love feeding people. So I’m very much into clean, pleasurable eating.”
Diners can order online or on-site via tablet screens, whether it’s to-go or for a meal or snack in the eight-table dining room. Efficiency and scalability are part of Chapel’s model: She’s looking into a commissary kitchen and plans to open up to six outlets around Ann Arbor in the next few years.
The baguette-like bread used in banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwiches, is baked in house, as are the cookies and brownie desserts. Available as a noodle dish or rice bowl is the Korean specialty bulgogi, beef marinated in Asian pear juice, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic. A Thai roasted cauliflower salad is among the many vegan options on the menu.
“I have developed a lot of tricks or ways to cook best the good food because I’m busy. It’s out of necessity. So I’m applying that to the restaurant,” Chapel says. “My strength is [to] find the right people, build a system and culture, and then the system runs.”
She has four employees so far and plans to add more, offering paid health insurance and time off as measures toward professionalization in food service.
“I want the staff members to find their way to grow their career, not just hourly wages,” she offers. “I love growing the young talent. People who come to the restaurant industry are not necessarily born with wealthy parents, but they’re hardworking people.
“This team is becoming like the team I built for the other discipline. It’s really, really heartwarming.”
Banh Mi Street Food, 1701 Plymouth Rd. (Courtyard Shops). (734) 585–0583. Daily 11 a.m.–8 p.m. banhmipro.com
