Fatboy Sandos, a casual eatery serving Japanese-inspired katsu sandwiches and onigiri rice balls, is looking for a new home after it is slated to close in Mesa at 1920 W Broadway Rd.
Fatboy Sandos and WokOn reside within the AZ International Marketplace, a 100,000-square-foot grocery store focusing on Asian goods. Unfortunately, the grocery store is set to close on December 1, according to Phoenix New Times. As a result, Fatboy Sando’s owner, Rafael De La Cuesta, has set up a crowdfunding campaign to raise $25,000 to help find a new home for his business and WokOn. De La Cuesta tells What Now that he hopes the campaign will gain traction before looking for a new site.
Fatboy Sandos started in Tucson in 2022, and De La Cuesta expanded the business to a second site in Mesa in September 2023. Since then, both locations have served delicious milk bread sandwiches, rice bowls, and kakigori, or Japanese shave ice. When AZ International Marketplace closes at the beginning of next month, the grocery store will get an exterior facelift and be divided into two spaces: a location for Urban Air Adventure Park and a different grocery store. It’s unclear which grocer will be the replacement.
“Hey community! We aren’t usually the type to ask for help, but here we are,” according to the campaign. “One week ago, our landlord informed us that the marketplace ourselves (Fatboy Sandos) and our pal Johns restaurant (WokOn) are located inside was closing in 1 month. Giving us 1 month to either find a new location to move to or close down. With almost no time to prepare for this, mentally or financially, we are desperately in need of help! Without help, we would more than likely not be able to move to another location and have to shut down like many restaurants. We are both family-run restaurants that solely depend on our business to live and have employees we love who depend on us as well. Our restaurants are our lives, and we truly love what we do. At this point, we are both sacrificing all we’ve had to start these dreams, and we can’t imagine doing anything else! Our plan is to move to a joint location close by that we have found. But moving and leasing costs unfortunately are out of our current reach, with the very short notice we have recieved. Please find it in your heart to donate, or just a share of this page would mean the world to us!”
