Name: Young Man, (Website & Instagram) 

Owners: Albert K and Zye K

Hours: Monday - Friday 4-8, Saturday - Sunday 1-8

Young Man is an Indonesian, Balinese, Hawaiian, and Japanese fusion restaurant in Kingfield. They opened in March 2020. The owners, Albert and Zye, are both from Indonesia and arrived in Minnesota in 2013.

How did you end up opening Young Man?

We are both originally from Indonesia. I [Zey] came to NYC in 2010 to study accounting and English. I was also working part-time as a server. We met working in restaurants. New York was very expensive, so we left for Tampa Bay. Albert was cooking in kitchens but it was way too hot to work. After 3 weeks there, we left Tampa Bay and moved to Burnsville after we saw a job opening in the World Journal, a Chinese language newspaper. 

We got here in 2013, and worked in restaurants until 2017, when we opened our food truck, Don Oishi Kitchen [editor’s note – they’re selling the food truck, and asked for people to get in touch if they want to buy it]. 

When Zye got pregnant, we decided that we couldn’t be in the truck all day, so we wanted to open a restaurant. In Indonesia, where we are from, a lot of times the parents send the kids to live with their grandparents. We didn’t want to do that, so opening the restaurant allowed us to spend time with our daughter while we work.

We want to introduce Minnesotans to Indonesian and Balinese tastes. 

What is your favorite thing that you sell?

Nasi Goreng. It’s one of our more authentic dishes, very flavorful, I could eat it every day. We try to cook all of our dishes at home for ourselves first, and this was one of our favorites. It’s also an Indonesian dish that we cook like Japanese fried rice. 

We make a lot of Indonesian street food, like the satay, the skewers, and the peanut sauce. 

How has the pandemic changed the way your business works?

We opened the restaurant in March of 2020. We only did walk-ins for a couple months, then we tried to do online orders only, but we were new, so it was hard. Then, the neighborhood helped us out. 

The community, especially the other small businesses, helped us out, so we want to give back to the community. Five Watt posted about us on Instagram and it drove a lot of new business. Finer Meats put something on the Kingfield community Facebook page. Pompadour Salon and Tula Spa sent their customers. Boludo had very long lines, and we got free advertising because people in line could see our sign. 

What is your favorite thing about your neighborhood?

Our neighborhood is friendly. They’ve been very welcoming, and they supported us a lot from the beginning. 

We used to eat dinner around here all the time, especially at Ramen Kazama, which is one of our favorite places to eat. We used to always drive past this corner often, and when we saw a spot open up, we were so excited. 

We want to say thank you to the neighborhood for supporting us, thank you to Kingfield for supporting us, and thank you especially to the other local businesses for supporting us.

What’s one thing you think people don’t know about your business that they should?

We don’t make really traditional Indonesian food. We do fusion with Hawaiian, Balinese, and Japanese dishes and techniques. The special spices we love to use most are galangal, garlic and samba, and we Albert mostly uses the wok to cook. We make our food cooked fresh to order for each customer.

We are a family-run business, and we want to do our part to support the community.

We were also the victims of financial fraud in 2020. A friend asked us to invest in a venture and the police got involved. It’s being handled by police in New York, but we don’t know if we’ll see our money again. We hope they can get it back.

What do you want your customers to ask you about the next time they come in?

You can give us your opinion about what you want, and we will cook to your tastes!