Since I opened Macrina in 1993, so many amazing people have helped make the bakery what it is today. In honor of our 25th anniversary, we are spotlighting a few key employees. Each fills an essential role at Macrina. Trieu Ly is an amazingly disciplined and meticulous person. I admire the pride he takes in his job and the entire performance of the packing department. His gentle personality and touch, both with baked goods and co-workers, make him a treasured member of our team. He’s consistently accurate and kind. He’s one of our best.Leslie 
Between all the kneading, proofing, hand-shaping, baking, and delivery of our various products lies one essential step: packing. While easy to overlook as a major step in the process, it’s every bit as important. About 20 people work in our packing department. Our baked goods and pastries are delicate and must be handled with care, and our customers count on us for precision. Their businesses depend on what they order arriving on time and in excellent condition. Trieu Ly fills a critical role in this process.
Trieu in the Packing Department
We hired Trieu to as a packer ten years ago. By personality, he’s neat and organized. Through a translator, he says, “If you’re messy you waste lots of time looking for things. Efficiency is important. I think of the most efficient way to move through the bakery so I gather what I need to pack without wasting steps. At home, I’m the same. Just ask my wife.”Trieu’s supervisor, Cong Son, backs this up. “Trieu is very organized, neat and careful at his work station,” says Cong. “In ten years, he’s made very few packing mistakes. He also helps me train new employees.”Trieu and the packing team come in the evening and work late into the night, so that our products are fresh and ready to go in the morning. This schedule works well for Trieu because his wife works at a hotel during the day. When their two boys were younger—the youngest is now 19—this allowed them to have a parent around at all times to help with the many challenges and needs that come with raising children.At Macrina, Trieu stuffs bread into bags and readies them for drivers. Pastries are packed by order. One of Trieu’s challenges and small joys at work is to look at an order, visualize how he will pack it, and choose a box that will fit without wasted space. “It’s like a puzzle,” he says. “You need to get all the delicate pastries into a box so that they don’t slide all over in delivery. And you don’t want to have to resort to a second box.”
Trieu's Journey
When Trieu came to America from Vietnam, he had very little. “I had only two shirts and two pairs of pants,” he says. “Macrina helped my family and me a lot. They helped with living expenses, utilities, rent, and more.” The story of Trieu meeting his wife is more adventurous than most. The Vietnam War displaced a significant number of Vietnamese citizens. About a million and a half refugees wound up in camps in Thailand, including Trieu’s wife. In 1989, Trieu got a ride into Cambodia, then traveled by foot into Thailand, a month-long journey in all. He and his wife met, fell in love, and married. For a time they stayed happily in Thailand, but eventually, the Thai government forced them to return to Vietnam. Life for returning war refugees in Vietnam was not good. Trieu’s brother, also a refugee, had come to Seattle in 1986. He sponsored Trieu and his family’s resettlement in the U.S. “I’m very grateful to America for giving my wife and me an opportunity to work and to get a good education for our kids,” Trieu says.He dreams of exploring more of America. His list includes skiing at Snoqualmie Pass and a California vacation. “In America, if you follow the rules of the road the police won’t pull you over,” he says. “In Vietnam, I used to get pulled over for a bribe no matter what I did.”Trieu stays close to family, spending time with the kids when he can and visiting with his brother frequently. In his free time he spends hours tending his garden, and you guessed it, cleaning and organizing the house.
Mean SandwichJohn Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, is said to have invented the sandwich so he didn’t have to leave the gambling table to eat. Three hundred years after his birth, the now ubiquitous finger food ranges from humble to haute. At Mean Sandwich, located in Ballard, everyday street food and elevated cuisine find a happy meeting place. You can grab something to nosh on when you’re in a hurry, or treat your snobbiest foodie friend to lunch. They won’t be disappointed.
Mean Sandwich is the brainchild of Kevin and Alex Pemoulie, formerly chef/owners of Thirty Acres, a critically-acclaimed restaurant that landed on Bon Appétit’s 2012 list of 50 best new restaurants in the country. Before that, they both worked at David Chang’s legendary New York restaurant Momofuku. After the birth of their daughter, they wanted to refocus. They shuttered their ode to fine dining and moved to Seattle, Alex’s hometown, to focus on casual, accessible food.“We’re challenging ourselves in a different way entirely,” Kevin says. “Before we opened, I worked for a long time on the menu for Mean Sandwich. Obviously, everything here is going between two pieces of bread, but we make everything in-house, from the corned beef of our namesake sandwich to our sausage.”Already high expectations for Mean Sandwich were elevated last fall when Eater put it on their list of 23 most anticipated openings around the country. Now, open nearly a year, the Pemoulie’s have backed up the hype, so much so that they made Bon Appetit’s 2017 list of 50 best new restaurants in the country.The menu is simple: six signature sandwiches, a side salad, and Skins and Ins, an awesome combination of fried potato chunks and their skins. All sandwiches are griddled and served hot on a Macrina Seeded Bun.The eponymous sandwich features tender thick-cut corned beef, pickled red cabbage, yellow mustard, mint, and a subtle dash of maple syrup. It’s based on a Thirty Acres dish and it’s worth a driving across town for—even at rush hour. None of the sandwiches feel too precious, but each has a special twist, that something you couldn’t do at home. You get the sense that the same care and effort they once put into each creative small plate at Thirty Acres goes into each sandwich. In addition to the standing menu, a special sandwich is offered every day, such as the Glazed Pork Belly with pine nuts, radicchio, and roasted tomato mayo. With the onset of the cooler weather, a fresh daily soup is also available.
Behind the small storefront, the interior space is simple with a couple of booths and seating lining the windows, 18 seats in total. In warmer weather, the large backyard is an oasis of fun. Diners pack the eight picnic tables and many wait for a turn at the ping-pong table. Patrons of Peddler Brewing can order sandwiches through a pickup window located in the brewery’s beer garden.
With a successful first year nearly behind them, Kevin and Alex are interested in opening a second location. “If the right opportunity came along we’d definitely entertain the idea,” Kevin says. “It seems that if you divide the city by a harsh north-south line, a lot of people wind up sticking to their neighborhoods during the weekdays, especially during the cold months. It’d be helpful to be in another part of the city.”Meanwhile, to expand their reach, Mean Sandwich plans to make their sandwiches available through every delivery service in Seattle. “We just want to serve people great sandwiches,” Kevin says.“Right now we’re operating exclusively with Caviar, but we’re looking to use UberEats, Postmates, Doordash, Amazon Restaurants. We literally just want to use every single one.”
Kevin and Alex have embraced Seattle and its food scene. They frequently take their daughter along as they try new restaurants or return to favorites. “The city is great,” Kevin says. “We live half a mile from Mean Sandwich, see Alex’s parents a great deal, and love our walkable neighborhood.”Their gamble to leave fine-dining behind and take their talents West has given Seattle a chef-driven take on the old standby. They’ve kept the everyday convenience of the Earl of Sandwich’s pedestrian invention and made it tasty enough for the most discerning diner.Mean Sandwich opens at 11 a.m. seven days a week. Check their website (meansandwich.com) for evening closing hours and much more. 
