Bruner-Yang worked restaurant jobs to earn his way through UMW. He showed up freshman year with a backpack full of tips – ones, fives, and tens – to make his first tuition payment.
drummer for Pash, dropped by Toki Underground for a meal before leaving for Peru to serve in the Peace Corps. The long lines and fantastic food didn’t surprise him. “Erik has always been someone who just naturally knows what is cool or hip and also someone who loves to entertain people. [When we were in Pash together,] he loved performing and putting on a show. And I think people really enjoyed watching him. I have to believe that some of that is what makes his restaurant successful,” Bibb emailed from Peru. “He likes to entertain people and he knows how to. He’s just a hardworking guy with a passion for entertainment and a natural talent for creating pleasing products, be it music or food!” Mary Washington graduate Megan Parry ’05 enjoyed a meal at Toki just before the holidays with her business partner, Alicia Austin Morgan, and their husbands. “We thought it was awesome. It was cool to be there on a cold winter night and share a big warm bowl of noodles,” Parry said. “It’s a fun place to be.” The restaurant’s neighborhood-hangout aesthetic − with its graffiti-covered walls, red paper lanterns, open kitchen, and skateboard-decks-turned-foot-rests − appealed to Parry and Morgan, who own Forage, a downtown Fredericksburg shop that specializes in vintage clothing and accessories. At the urging of a mutual friend, they asked Bruner-Yang if they could bring some of their items to his restaurant for a pop-up show one Sunday, when Toki Underground is normally closed.
“I felt like I was asking a huge favor,” Parry said. “But from the moment he emailed me back, ‘Let’s get it done,’ we got it done in one month.” The Dec. 9 event − the first for Forage − was a success. Bruner-Yang, a pop-up veteran himself, said he loved partnering with Mary Washington grads who, like him, are making a living pursuing their passions. Bruner-Yang hopes to do more collaborative events to promote art, music, and other projects along the H Street corridor, where he lives. The D.C. community has a small-town feel, not unlike Fredericksburg, he said, and networking with others and supporting their efforts is not just a good idea. It’s “a moral obligation,” he said. To that end, he often joins forces with other chefs for charity events. The Saturday night before President Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration, Bruner-Yang was one of seven chefs whipping up specialties at the Chefs Ball, which raised money for a number of good causes, including D.C. Central Kitchen, the James Beard Foundation − a nonprofit that promotes the culinary arts − and Common Threads, which teaches children from low-income families how to create affordable, nutritious meals. Back at Toki Underground, the crowds are steady, with regulars and new diners lining the narrow staircase to the second-floor restaurant six nights a week. Bruner-Yang met his fiancée there when she stopped in for a meal. He employs 22 people to keep up with customer demand, and he provides health insurance for most of them. “I love coming to work,” Bruner-Yang said. “I think it would not be as fun if the crew wasn’t as good. But everybody wants to see the place do well.” He and his investors have considered moving to a larger space, but they like the cozy environs − even if working in the minuscule kitchen requires a delicate choreography. Bruner-Yang envisions Toki Underground as a reasonably priced neighborhood hangout, bathed in the comforting scent of homemade broth. “Every great neighborhood in any part of the world should have a place, a comfort food spot,” he said. “In Fredericksburg, you can grab a beer at J. Brian’s or a bite at Sammy T’s. My ultimate goal in establishing this restaurant is providing for the community that I live in − H Street.” d U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y WA S H I N G TO N M AG A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 1 3
19