Hi, I'm Chef Lee Burton.

I'm a chef and a culinary instructor.

But more than anything, I'm a supporter of everything local.

My passion and my palate usually lead me to a locally owned restaurant, because to me, they're the lifeblood of every community.

Owning and operating a restaurant certainly comes with its share of challenges.

On Go Local Lee we'll give you an insider's view of the restaurant business from operations and interviews with the owners.

To visits with the chef in the kitchen.

Thank you for having me today for the Go Local Lee show.

Start by introducing yourselves.

Hi, my name is Kadir.

I am one of the co-owners of Cheesewalla.

I do the front of the house and I also take care of all of our marketing.

And I'm Cameron Parvin.

I'm also a co-owner, and I do mainly back in the house in charge of the food and drink programs.

We'll start from day one.

Instant success.

Market Night Pop up.

Take us back.

Yes.

So our first market night back in 2015, I remember when we had we well, we were already 30 minutes late setting up.

So we're we're a little bit in scramble mode.

But as we start setting up, we start seeing a line form and it's getting longer and longer and longer.

And before we know it, it's pretty much down the street.

And so I remember I looked at my sister and said, I think we might have something at the same time.

Pretty scared.

We weren't we weren't really sure how we were going to fulfill all the orders at that point because I want to say we had sold out in about 30 to 45 minutes that day.

And I mean, after that.

The market night was two or 3 hours, right?

Like, Yes, you're done like in your first.

But from day one, you were a huge success.

And the concept we're the cheesewalla the brand come from.

Where did the concept come from?

So I was actually I was up north and I had seen a grilled cheese sandwich shop up there.

And I love the idea execution wise.

I thought it could have been done better.

So I came back down here, talked to my sister and just told her, you know, it's a grilled cheese sandwich, it's comfort food.

Let's simplify it a little bit.

The sandwich shop that I had seen, they would throw a bunch of fancy ingredients into a sandwich charge, 13, $14 for it, called the day.

So what we do is we started coming up with popular dishes that people loved.

So hoping a popper, a pizza, grilled cheese, loaded baked potato, so just converted popular items into grilled cheese sandwiches.

And people people kind of just fell in love.

It was kind of a blank canvas, right?

Yeah.

We actually even went to a grilled cheese shop that was down here in the O.C.

area closer to the coast.

And their menu, some of the cheeses, we couldn't even pronounce them like we're like, Oh, we'll have number four because we couldn't pronounce words.

And so we're like, okay, we need to make this a little less scary, a little bit more relatable.

So our whole motto is Comfort meats, creativity.

So the creativity is still there, but it just made it a little bit more approachable, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Brother, sister, team, you each have your lanes?

Yeah.

How does that work as far as running a restaurant?

So we always say back to the house in front of the house.

He's completely front of the house.

I'm completely back to the house.

And, yeah.

It's.

It's worked out well.

It lets me kind of stay in my lane, do what I do best.

She does what she does, which is create all the recipes.

Every sandwich has been created by her.

I there's no way I could have ever done any of that.

The funny story is when we first started, I want to say about two weeks into market night, she'd come to me and she goes, No one knows me.

Everyone thinks it's your business.

They don't even think I'm involved in it.

And I looked at her and I said, okay, I'm sorry.

I will change that.

So the weeks leading after that, we would have a newspaper person come and I'd tell the person, Hey, I'm so sorry.

I need you to and I need I have someone else that needs to be interviewed.

So I'd bring her over and I would say about a week later, she calls me up and goes, You know what?

Nope.

I'm sorry.

I. I think I know where I got you.

Like your lane and.

Yeah, back in the house, right.

Well, know.

And then same with him.

Sometimes he'll come to me and say, I have this sandwich idea.

I'm like, okay, great.

Run with it.

And he comes back to me.

He's like, you know what?

You can do it.

It's fine.

Yeah, I think I'm good with just doing my part.

Yeah.

So we both tried each other's roles and we just realized, well, we're good at what we do and we just let the other person do what they do.

So when he brought over the idea of having the sandwich shop, I'm like, okay, maybe I can use the education, but then now I can finally start doing the food.

And so it was actually helped that I didn't go to culinary school because I know when you go there, they give you rules on how to make certain foods.

But in our household, my mom always, you know, she's trying to make pizza, but we don't know what pizza is when we first got here.

So our pizza ended up looking very different than like friends pizzas at their house.

But that kind of helped me with the menu here because I thought about it.

I'm like, Well, mom never really followed the rules as far as anything else went, so.

Grilled cheese is a great vehicle.

I can just kind of get creative and kind of do what she did.

You mentioned your parents ancestors from your ancestry and your heritage plays a role and with the business, too.

Right.

And they must be super proud of you.

Yeah, they are now.

It didn't initially start out that way.

Okay.

You know, for them, they wanted us to like I said, they wanted us to do a little bit more practical careers, not work as hard as they did.

And so they were saying, you know, cooking in a kitchen.

We do that every day in our house.

Go and do something like working in an office or be a doctor or something like that.

And it just never really like called out to me.

I like the food and drink part.

It just happens to be that I have my business degree.

So it kind of helped us do this.

I don't think I would be able to do it without that, but yeah, it's just always our parents.

So coming from the immigrant background, they're hard workers, so all they want is, you know, they're just used to you work, you work, and then you become successful one day.

So the idea of doing something outside the box a little bit more on the creative side was completely out of the norm for them.

So when we wanted to do the grilled cheese shop initially, no, you have your business degree, you have your nursing degree, you guys already made it, essentially.

And so when we first opened up the grilled cheese shop, I remember because my mom's she's a tough woman to please, that's for sure.

So when we she gave us, she walked through and gave us.

You agree with that?

I do, Yeah.

She's the smallest woman you'll meet, but her presence is just larger than she is.

Yeah.

But when she came that she came through the shop and she gives us the initial.

Okay, you guys did good.

And I looked over at I'm like, Oh, man, we made her proud.

Yeah.

And then when she saw this expansion, same thing.

She walks in, sits at a table, looks at, looks around, looks at me and her.

Okay, you guys did good and then just walks right out.

And again, I looked at her and I'm saying, Wow, she's really be excited and proud of us, but she can't show it.

Yeah, it takes a lot for her to actually express herself.

So you've earned a really respected and loved brand.

And in Redlands, we all love Cheesewalla.

But you were also the first restaurant on Umbrella Alley as we know it here.

So you went from the pop up to the brick and mortar on umbrella alley.

You know, having a full service bar.

The evolution has been it's been eight years now.

Is it?

It's been eight years since we started the business, six years for our store front And it was interesting when Kadir first showed me the space, I'm looking at it and it's kind of like a disaster zone.

Oh yeah.

The parts of the floor were missing, the ceiling wasn't even there and the alleyway was actually a delivery and trash alley.

And so I had to visualize what he was explaining.

He's like before.

Before the umbrellas Yeah, before the umbrellas, before the pavement, everything.

And I'm trying to visualize.

I'm like, okay, I think I can see it.

Let's take the risk explaining it to other people wasn't as easy, you know, the imagination.

You just kind of see this bare alley and you're like, So what are you guys trying to do here?

So years later.

You were the first one that jumped in.

Yes, I guess on the.

Crazy.

Storefront in the alley.

It was I mean, the I think looking at the alley and knowing what was going to potentially be here one day was the exciting part.

The scary part was being the first to actually jump in, take the risk, jump in here.

And now I would imagine the real estate in this alley is probably is it as high as it is on State Street, which is our main downtown area?

I call it selfie alley.

Yes.

Take a photo with the umbrellas like you were there from the beginning before.

You know, you had the foresight to know that there was a space to go into and and then let's talk about the menu development, you know, back to your lane, the Samosa I'm thinking that's a kind of a nod to your heritage, right?

Yeah.

So, you know, we decided it's going to be a grilled cheese shop.

And grilled cheese is not normally commentated with Indian food, but because of the name Cheesewalla we wanted to give a little shout out to like our background.

And so I brought up the idea with him and he's like, I don't know if people are going to accept it as that, because Samosa, if you know what a Samosa is, it's a appetizer in Indian menus and it's usually like a triangle shape on kind of like a pastry that's fried.

And I was like, well, again, mom had no rules cooking, so let's just try it.

We'll see.

And sure enough, it was one of those where he comes to me and he's like, All right, that's my.

Favorites.

Well, she hit a home run with it/ And then it also served with three different in-house chutneys that we make.

There's a red, There's a green and there's a white Yeah.

And I mean grilled.

Cheese with a dip.

Yeah.

So when people ask what my favorite one is, it's not because it's the Indian sandwich, it's more because of the sauces.

You can make every single bite taste different.

You can have a sweet bite a spicy bite a creamy bite, and then kind of just endless possibilities there.

And how many types of grilled cheese you have now was like.

So we have about 15 on our menu.

But the fun part about our menu is the sandwiches are there, but you can actually get them in different variations.

So not only can you get a grilled cheese, but you can get something called loaded tater tots, where we put all those ingredients on top of a bed of crispy tater tots.

Or you could even do a Quesadilla.

And in the last couple of months, we've actually given the option to put it on top of a salad or even mac and cheese.

So technically, our 15 item menu is closer to 100.

Yeah, just depends on what you're feeling for the day, right?

Yeah.

I love the option of the grilled cheese.

Yeah, the grilled cheese.

When it's your first time.

I always suggest to people try it as a grilled cheese first and then come back later and try the different variations.

Or just try all three on the same day, but definitely try the grilled cheese version first.

So your heritage and family ancestry plays a big role in this brand that we all love in Redlands here.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Interesting story.

So back in 1990, my parents had won the green card lottery in Bangladesh.

And what that allowed them to do was take my two sisters and myself to pretty much whatever country they wanted to.

So they chose the United States.

We didn't have a lot of money at the time, so my dad sold a bunch of his property and then bought one way tickets to the US.

And once we came out here, the rest was history.

I always say it's kind of like our American Dream story, my sister calls.

It, but I like to say that we won the Willy Wonka golden ticket.

When we first got, it wasn't quite what we expected, but the outcome was the real.

Yeah.

Okay, Chef.

You've heard about our back story.

Let's go back to the kitchen.

We can show you some stuff.

Can't wait to see it.

All right, Chef Lee, welcome to our kitchen.

This is Dawson.

He's our general manager.

Dawson, great to see you.

You.

And he's the one who makes sure that all of our food comes out consistent.

We have a rule.

If a customer comes in on a Tuesday, we want them to get the same sandwich.

If they come back on Saturday and Dawson always make sure that that has consistency.

So keep it is is one of the reasons why we're so popular in town.

They know they get the same product every time.

You're going to show us the full back of the house.

Love seeing that behind the scenes.

Before we get started, let's get you in an apron and get you ready to cook.

Beautiful love your aprons to.

Thank you.

I was like, We got one just for you.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

And go this way.

Yeah.

Right in there.

And then head straight to the top there.

Yeah.

Taking you back to, like, when you're a kid.

Getting.

Yeah.

From your school official when you put the apron on.

Right.

I love the brand of the logo on there too as well.

And there you go.

All right, look at that.

Ready to cook?

Yep.

Everything from the start of the Samosa You're going to take this to the end of work.

The customer expresses the fantastic part.

The grilled cheese part.

Yeah.

So this is the fun part.

This is what I like to do, too.

So we already have everything ready this.

So most of the Cameron made for us are locally sourced bread and then our cheese.

So we're just going to get right off and go in and just throw this spread side down on the grill.

Nice, super easy.

And then this is kind of our saving grace.

The only way we could get our sandwiches out as quickly as we can.

A little butane torch.

Oh.

Griddle and the torch, huh?

Yeah, I was like, just to melt the cheese a lot quicker.

And it just kind of helps give it, like, a little smoky taste, too, which kind of helps kind of set all of our sandwiches apart.

You know, you couldn't really make this type of sandwich at home without, you know, all the little things that we got.

So just slightly elevated it.

Also expediting it for the timing of the preparation.

Correct.

Gives us a lot of time.

When we're originally at market night, we use trays on lids and we just put a little water to steam them.

And yeah, it takes a little too long for the torch.

Definitely speeds up the process a lot quicker for us.

So yeah, and then super simple, we're just going to do the cheese and then the Samosa filling right here.

We're just going to set this right on top.

Actually, if you wanted to do that for me, we're just going to put it right on in the middle there.

Right on one of these.

Yeah, just right there.

All right, let's do it.

We'll spill over there.

Awesome.

Beautiful.

So then all we're going to do is now everything's melted, Everything's waiting.

We're just going to let the bread get nice and crispy.

Yeah.

So it'll just be about, like, another minute or two, and then the sandwich is ready to go.

So this sandwich is pretty much done.

We're just going to kind of give a quick little pose and then that is a toasted sandwich right there.

And then this is ready to go to a guest.

Looks great.

It's my favorite.

I love the Samosa And it it smells just as good as it tastes to.

The aromas from the spices.

Oh, yeah.

And then so now the fun part.

Yeah, we just finished making it.

So let me go ahead and cut it for you.

And I would love if you wanted to take a bite of it right now.

I would love to try it.

So there's our Samosa and then we got some accompany sauces that go with it, a spicy, spicy green, a sweet red, and then kind of a cucumber neutral yogurt.

We love that.

So then right there you go.

And I.

Love the dip with the grilled.

Cheese.

Oh, yeah.

So my personal favorite.

I like to mix the green and the white sauce together.

It's a little spicy and then a little neutral with a cucumber yogurt sauce.

I think it's a perfect balance, in my opinion.

Oh, it smells so good, too.

I'm going to go without just to try it like a bite without the dip.

Yeah.

Honestly.

So that when you have the sandwiches with the sauces to you almost get like four or five different sandwiches because if you mix and match the sauces you're almost getting a new sandwich every single time you take a bite with it.

Add another layer of flavoring.

Exactly.

I know you guys are your spices here and herbs are used well, very.

Prominent on all of our seasoning blends and or sauces and or spices.

Look how beautiful that looks.

I'm telling you.

All right, I'm going to.

And awesome.

Go for it.

Oh.

Oh, is it good?

Amazing.

Could I take a bite with you?

Yeah, well, it's beautiful.

Let's do a it Let's see how good this is.

The herbs and the seasonings.

Wow.

Cumin Coriander What's the.

You don't have to give us your whole recipe, but, like, I'm tasting a lot of different flavors here.

So we use a cumin and coriander, and then our spice blend.

It's actually a house secret.

Okay, So I can't give too many things away, but definitely a lot of spices.

I think there's somewhere about 10 to 15 different spices in there that we use.

So definitely a lot going on.

Phenomonal So delicious.

I'm one of my favorites.

So what's next?

Awesome.

Next, we're going to be making the Jalepeno Popper a little bit of spice, a little bit of meat.

I think it's the best combination, if you will, like a little bit of spice in your life.

I do.

So this one is not going to be on the sourdough bread.

It's actually on Jalepeno Cheese Bread So this one has a little bit of Jalepeno and cheddar cheese mixed into the bread when they bake it.

So you get a little bit of layers incorporated into the sandwich.

I love that.

Layering the flavors again.

I was like, so then kind of same process as before, just melting the cheese, getting it ready.

I was like, you.

This torvh helps us out so much.

I was like, But sometimes you got to be careful.

It'll take off your eyebrows.

And every sandwich gets the torch.

Yeah, every Sandwich gets the torch, no exceptions.

So then the torch makes it super easy.

We're just going to add on the roasted jalapenos.

We cook those fresh every single morning.

It's nice.

We also have our bacon.

We just throw that on there.

Got to have the bacon in there.

You have to have the bacon.

And then next, we have our Jalepeno cream cheese that we make in-house and just get a little drizzle on the top.

Ooh, kind.

Of in-house made.

Yes, I like that.

And then that's pretty much the jalepeno Popper super simple, super easy, very tasteful, too beautiful.

Looks great as I was like.

And then this one is going to be one of our quicker sandwiches to cook.

So this one is just going to be another minute or so, and this one will be ready to go out.

I'll just give that a flip and then it's almost done.

Nice.

Yeah.

So with the Jalepeno cheese bread it definitely cooks a lot faster than the sourdough.

So this one, we're able to turn and burn really quickly and as soon as the guest orders it, because we have all of our fresh ingredients prepped out every single day.

It's very easy and quick to get it to the guests within a couple of minutes.

Honestly, like I just threw this one down and it hasn't even been 2 minutes.

Yeah, but again, mise en place organization, having all your ingredients queued up, ready to go.

That's a that's a big help for us.

So that will make sure that we get our sandwiches out as quickly as possible to while not lowering the quality of our any of our ingredients to love it.

Ready for plate up?

Yes.

We just took it off the grill.

Let me give it a cut and here we go.

Yeah, and there you go.

Delicious again.

I see all the layers of the the profile and I'm going to taste in my mouth.

Now.

Let's do it.

Cheers.

Mm.

Oh, yeah.

I think I missed my mouth a little bit.

Little heat the sauce kind of cuts a little bit.

Fantastic.

And the bread with it being such a nice quality, it just kind of melts in your mouth too.

You get a crunch.

As soon as you take a couple more bites, it just really blends all together.

I can see why this is a big hit.

It's the right amount of spice to taste, to do a little bit of a peak there and then you come back down.

Yeah, I.

Was like, never, never too bad.

Maybe Want to take a sip, a sip of water or something like that?

Maybe a soda.

But yeah, you're kind of a little addictive, almost kind of like.

Like hot Cheetos.

You have one, and you just want to keep on going.

Yeah.

You go back.

Exactly.

Fantastic.

That's a winner.

Yep.

Winner in my book.

My taste buds are still dancing.

That's the most was amazing.

Glad you enjoyed.

It.

So, what's our next sandwich?

So the next sandwich we're going to be making today is going to be our barbecue mac.

And it's a very simple process.

Same as the Samosa We got our bread, we got our cheese, and we have all of our filling.

So we're just going to start off by sourdough bread, spread side down with our cheese, and then we're just going to kind of get that melting just to kind of speed up the process.

And again, for expediting, you have all your ingredients pre-prepared.

Correct?

Yeah.

So we have our macaroni cheese, we have our braised barbecue beef, grilled onions, and a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese just to kind of help get the sandwich to really stick together like a proper grilled cheese.

So when it's expedited, everything's ready to go.

Correct.

Must be a process to make the meat.

Is that a long process?

So to me actually is probably the thing that takes the longest to cook in our restaurant.

It's about anywhere between a 6 to 8 hour process to cook the meat, and that's in the oven, braised low and slow.

We start at about about like three or four in the morning, and we don't really ended up until about like 12:00 noon noontime.

Wow.

So just for ease, we just have it ready to go in the morning and then we could just start serving it as soon as guests order it.

We don't really have to have them waiting 12 hours to place an order for just one sandwich.

They could do it and it will be ready about 510 minutes for expediting.

It's easy and the consistency is always there.

Which I love about your grilled cheese sandwich is correct.

Consistency is key, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

We want to make sure everybody is getting the exact same thing, regardless of what time they come in, regardless of the day to.

Yeah.

So now that we have the cheese all melted, we're just going to throw on a little bit of barbecue sauce.

Oh, nice.

We have grilled onions that are just going to go right on there.

Oh, yeah.

There you go.

Next we have our macaroni and cheese.

That's just going to go right on top.

Oh, yes.

I'm loving this already.

We have a little bit of our barbecue beef and then.

Slow roasted meat.

We just have the cheddar cheese and that's just going to go right in between the sandwich just to get it all glued together whenever we're done with it.

And then I'll just kind of kiss the flame to the cheese one more time just to get it all melted.

And then there you go.

And every grilled cheese gets the torch, right?

Every grilled cheese gets a torch.

Yeah.

It just adds another component of flavor that you wouldn't really be able to find at any any other restaurant or even at your house.

So it kind of just sets us apart ever so slightly.

And yeah, this is the barbecue mac.

This is all done and we are ready to go.

Looks so good.

I was like, There we go.

Fantastic I was like, Well, let's give this a cut.

Ready for plate up?

Yeah.

So we just finished cooking the barbecue.

Mac And let me get this right to you.

Oh, yes.

Then you could see all that goodness in there look at that beautiful thing.

And there you go.

Oh, wow.

Like, let me know.

how you enjoy that one.

Maybe you'll have some with me.

Oh, sure.

You want to do a Cheers.

Cheers.

Oh, very good.

Yeah, I'm going to go for another one, actually.

All those layers.

You see it on the side.

You know, you get a reference, but each one of those layers has a flavor.

Mm hmm.

And that's all that we try to.

We don't want to overpower any one ingredient in here.

So for us, we always pre-portioned all of our all of our fillings out that way.

Nobody's going to have too much beef or too much macaroni or not enough macaroni or not enough beef.

It's always the exact same.

So so anytime you eat it, you're always going to be getting the perfect bite regardless if you eat it from the corner or from the center too.

Yeah.

Use of spices and herbs is so fantastic.

And then we also actually source some of our spices from local shops too.

We use some of our coffee from a local coffee brewery down here, Oh very nice Your bread is from.

Old Town baking.

Old town baking company.

Yeah.

They're, they're all local.

A local bakery and we just really enjoy the quality of their bread.

So we just find that it works best with our sandwiches, too.

Also, a market night vendor from your beginnings at market nights.

Yeah, they were.

They were with us on market night, too.

They had a little easy up, kind of just a couple of spots down from us and we were able to kind of talk with them, even see them at other events to they would be in some of the neighboring cities doing some of their little farmer's markets events as well.

So we were able to build a very good relationship with them.

And after a while we were able to bring them on as our bread supplier.

So they gave us about four or five different styles of bread to use in our sandwiches as well.

This is their sourdough?

Yeah, this is their sourdough.

We also have a white bread, a jalepeno cheese bread and a wheat bread that we use from them as well.

Oh.

So good.

Fantastic.

Of course.

Thank you, Chef.

Dawson, Wonderful to be with you today.

Always a pleasure to have you.

Great to learn about Cheesewalla And the brand And go behind the scenes I love that part.

Yeah its always a good time.

So always remember.

Go Local Lee