This weekend, former neighbourhood favourite Sunday’s Grocery will be selling sandwiches, fried chicken, whisky highballs, sake and more at a three-day pop-up at INTERVAL Coffee Bar. The bar’s retail and events space PRESET will also transform into a bottle shop filled with custom-made beverages by Sunday’s Spirits, which will be sold at wholesale prices.
Sunday’s Grocery was founded by Canadian-born Matt Abergel and Lindsay Jang who opened Japanese izakaya concept Yardbird in 2011, successfully fusing New York-style service, traditional yakitori dishes and a moody space in Soho. Since then, they’ve expanded out of their original venue and into a larger site in Sheung Wan, opened fish-centric speakeasy RŌNIN on quiet Kau U Fong street, and started their curated lifestyle brand Sunday’s Grocery, which sells everything from artisanal spirits — whisky, sake, and shochu— food products and merchandise. Its former brick-and-mortar store in Kennedy Town is now closed, but it continues to offer its supplies online and in a corner of Yardbird.
Sunday’s Grocery and Sunday’s Spirits gained their names from Matt and Lindsay’s time spent living in New York and working at Japanese restaurants Nobu and Masa. Sunday was the only day off the pair had together, with most of that time spent happily eating at Yakitori Totto on West 55th Street — ultimately inspiring their yakitori joint, Yardbird.
The duo have since designed their own t-shirts, socks and prints, and have collaborated with established spirit producers in Japan to make a range of custom spirits. These include Sasanokawa Shuzo, who has been producing alcoholic beverages in Japan for 253 years. They’ve blended his whisky and packaged it for a new, contemporary audience with Sunday’s Spirits. Rairaku Brewery in Hyogo, Japan — one of the most respected breweries in Hyogo, making sake for 160 years — has also helped them create an exclusive junmai and junmai nigori.
Free tastings of these spirits will be on offer from 22 to 24 May when Sunday’s Grocery takes over INTERVAL Coffee Bar. Stop by from 5pm to midnight on Friday, 12pm to midnight on Saturday, and 12pm to 8pm on Sunday for a drink and some of their famous Korean fried chicken.
