New-to-Fresno restaurants, plus another Wayside Noodles location coming to this center
How does a whole menu specializing french fries smothered with toppings like fried chicken and mango habanero sauce sound?
Or how about some pho — that Vietnamese noodle soup with steak that’s so popular in Fresno?
New restaurants are coming to town serving both of those foods and more. The Square at Campus Pointe, the shopping center near Fresno State with Maya Cinemas, is gearing up to welcome an influx of new restaurants.
They include a location for the familiar Wayside Noodles, a mom-and-pop restaurant with location in Fresno’s Fig Garden Village that serves pho and lots of other Asian dishes.
Several new-to-Fresno chains and franchises are coming too, including Mr. Fries Man, Lee’s Sandwiches, and Mochinut. Raw Earth Juicery is opening a location here too.
And one restaurant is officially gone: fast food joint Five Guys Burgers & Fries.
Right next door to the theater, the location closed during the pandemic. Last year, a representative said it planned to reopen. But now the signs have been removed and a shopping center representative confirmed that Five Guys is gone for good.
So how about a little more about each of the restaurants that are coming?
Wayside Noodles
This restaurant has had a location in the back of Fig Garden Village since 2012. It plans to open the new spot at Campus Pointe in March in the former Tofas Mediterranean spot, just to the right of the theater.
When it opens it will have a similar menu with best sellers pho, traditional spring rolls and sushi-inspired rice paper rolls, along with noodle and rice dishes.
The new restaurant will have something the existing one doesn’t: beer and wine. It’s in the process of getting its liquor license.
The new spot will be a second location to start, but once the restaurant’s lease is up in Fig Garden in November, it won’t return, said owner Kalia Lor. The restaurant wants a bigger location and kitchen, she said.
Mr. Fries Man
The main menu item at Mr. Fries Man is french fries, smothered in everything from steak to shrimp and crab, with all kinds of sauces and toppings.
Founder Craig Batiste started the business in Southern California selling his fries via Instagram in parking lots. The business got a boost when the late rapper Nipsey Hussle posted its food on the platform and it took off from there.
Now, Mr. Fries Man has at least 15 restaurants, many of them franchises, in California, Utah and Las Vegas.
If all goes as planned, the restaurant will open in late summer in the space once occupied by Yogurtland.
The menu includes barbecue bacon chicken ranch fries and build-your-own options, including meatless Beyond meat. Nine options for sauces include jalapeño ranch and “smack” — a sweet and spicy sauce.
Prices range from $13 to $33. The highest-priced dish is also the No. 1 seller: fries topped with shrimp and real crab meat, feeding two or three people, said Everett Hunter, Jr., a franchise owner who is planning seven locations in the Central Valley.
And there will be dancing involved. The restaurant will have a “dance cam,” a camera that projects to screens in the restaurant. Music starts playing when customers walk in.
“You can dance and it goes to everybody in the building,” Hunter said. “It’s fun because when you start dancing when you walk in, the employees start dancing.”
Lee’s Sandwiches
This sandwich chain started in the Bay Area and now has more than 60 locations in California, Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma.
It’s building out a new space just west of Bulldoc Korean Fusion and is months away from opening.
Lee’s got its start selling banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwiches. Now there are 18 Asian-style sandwiches on the menu, many made with French bread and a pork liver paté.
The menu expanded to include European sandwiches with cold cuts, and vegetarian options. There is a ham, turkey, salami and cheese sandwich on a croissant, for example, and tuna with toasted almonds on a baguette.
Mochinut
This is the place The Bee told you about last fall that specializes in a treat that’s a combination of a donut and a mochi, the Japanese dessert.
The donuts come in a distinct ring shape in various flavors and colors, like churro, red velvet, or matcha with a green glaze.
There will also be Korean hot dogs, gelato and boba tea on the menu.
Mochinut will be open soon, shooting for the first weekend of March. It’s next to the Wayside Noodles spot near the theater.
Raw Earth Juicery
This juice bar is taking over the space that Farm Fresh Bowls left behind last fall.
It has two other locations in Fresno and serves organic, cold-pressed juices, smoothies and smoothie bowls.
It’s very close to opening, probably about two weeks away, according to one of the owners.
This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
