My restaurant started back in 2021 when I purchased my food truck, which was always a dream of mine.

I was a displaced worker.

Coming off of COVID, I didn't know what my next step was gonna be, next chapter of my life.

I was trying to find out what I was gonna do with myself, and I was lookin' for jobs at other restaurants and started thinkin' about how I didn't really wanna cook anybody else's menu.

[jazz style music] My name's Stephen Stanbro, Owner/Operator of Bro Man's Sammiches.

It's always been a dream of mine to have my own location and my own restaurant.

I put the challenge on myself to be different.

I don't wanna do other things that other people are doin' locally.

I enjoy traveling and trying food from different parts of the country and different parts of the world, and I like to bring stuff like that back to Erie that you don't really find around here.

Special dish from our menu is, feel like we have a few.

One that kinda set us apart from the beginning was our Birria.

It was something that was trending across the country when I opened my food truck, and I know nobody around here was really doin' it, and I started playing with the recipe with it.

And I used, for the most part I used, a pretty traditional recipe, and then I just kinda tweaked it a little bit.

Our Sooner Burger's our other one.

It's just a simple burger, but it's just delicious.

It gets a lotta hype.

Now, we won best burger, I believe, because of that burger.

It was originally developed.

I call it a Sooner Burger 'cause it's originally a Oklahoma burger.

It was developed during The Depression.

They used to smash onions into their burgers to extend the meat, so we took that burger and turned it into our own.

I took the traditional classic things and just put my own spin on 'em and made 'em our own, and I think they're delicious and I think most of our customers do too.

We have our base core items, like our Sooner Burger, our Birria.

Our Cheesesteaks are one of our top sellers as well now, but I'm constantly always lookin' for a way to bring new and exciting food and flavors here, whether it's through my travel, just watchin' YouTube videos.

I take a lot of like national days and make it like a national week here.

We tried to do a national day one time with our Lasagna Grilled Cheese on National Lasagna Day, and it was an absolute nightmare.

Like, we sold out in like the first 15 minutes, so ever since that day, any time we do stuff like that we spread it out over the week.

But I'm always bringin' stuff in, whether it's addin' smoked elements or spicy elements or just different seasonal elements to the food.

I try to keep things new and different and keep people engaged.

I do a few things throughout the year for like Back to School events and somethin' that I don't really broadcast out there.

I donate backpacks and school supplies and things like that and different sponsorship for sports and individual youth sponsorships for kids.

We do a lotta different things for donations for charities and benefits for people raising money for cancer and things like that.

We lost a close family member to cancer like 12 years ago, so then we opened this restaurant on his birthday, so he holds a special place in my heart.

But that's why we wear orange all the time 'cause it's for leukemia and anything I can do to help out anybody that's goin' through hard time.

I've been blessed to be put in the situation that I'm in, and I can't always do a lot, but whatever I can do, I try to do.

I was born and raised in Erie, and like I said, I support local as much as possible.

I encourage people to support local.

I like to believe that we're doin' somethin' special here, somethin' unique that's kinda adding to the culture of Erie by doing some creative and unique stuff that isn't really done around this area that brings more attention and brings more people that come to the area.

And my goal is to hopefully eventually become an iconic spot, like Mighty Fine Donuts or somethin' like that some day.

So [laughs] when people think about Erie, they think about Bro Man's.

[jazz style music]