It hasn’t even been two years since Patty and Travis Burns opened their small, Filipino-inflected sandwich spot on a side street in Randolph, but already, they’ve moved up in the world. Kuya’s and One Main merged last fall in the prime Main Street corner space where One Main Tap & Grill spent eight years. And the Burnses couldn’t be happier.

“It’s been great,” says Travis. “This is what we set out to do, was open a restaurant like this.”

The two met in California. Patty, who’d moved to San Francisco from the Philippines to follow family and took a job working with Vanessa Garcia, a friend who’d taken over Seven Mile House in a historic building just outside the city and turned it into a Filipino-American restaurant. “The place looked like a shack,” Patty says, “but what they were doing inside was special.” There, she spent a decade learning the fine points of bartending and restaurant service before moving on to Trabocco Kitchen and Cocktails in Alameda as a bartender—where she worked side by side with Travis, who’d moved out west from Randolph, where he grew up.

What they gained at Trabocco—in addition to a friendship that turned into a marriage—was an even deeper appreciation for how to make customers feel not just well served, but welcome. The chef, Patty says, “elevated everything we know—wine knowledge, beer, service, hospitality” by exposing them to Italian and European cuisine and restaurant culture. At Kuya’s, she adds, “our goal is to give quality service to people who come in with no expectations, by having that fine, warm hospitality.”

Patty and Travis Burns

The food at Kuya’s is a mix—”Southeast Asian fusion and American new gastro-pub,” Travis says. “Which encompasses pretty much everything.” You’ll find a smash burger on the menu, and fish tacos. But you’ll also find lumpia (Filipino spring rolls) and Filipino soups and variations on liempo, the grilled pork belly served up by pretty much every hole-in-the-wall in the country, each with its own take.

You’ll also find a quartet of ingredients sourced from the Philippines that Patty insists Kuya’s can’t do without: soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, and calamansi juice—”It’s like a key lime,” Travis says, “but it has more of a flavor between orange and lime, with a balance of sweet and tart.” Filipino soy sauce in particular, Patty says, is crucial. It’s saltier than what Americans are used to, but has a bright, almost lime-like finish. “You just don’t want to make a Filipino dish with a Kikkoman soy sauce,” she says. “I can’t serve if it’s not the right flavor.”

Kuya’s uses a trio of ingredients from the Filipino company Datu Puti.

At the same time, she adds, “We’re very Vermont-focused as well. We’re really trying to get as local as possible with our stuff, and with the bar. Bringing in Vermont spirits and beer makes us special, I think, and we also have a lot of local acts on the stage twice a week, as well as work by local artists.”

For Patty, there’s no question what she’d have for lunch or dinner: the banh mi with rice. The baguette is custom-made for Kuya’s by La Panciata in Northfield. The pork belly is sourced locally, then marinated in a Filipino pineapple barbecue sauce that includes soy sauce, ketchup, a whole pineapple and pineapple juice, Filipino vinegar, and calamansi juice, and then served with do chua, a traditional Vietnamese condiment for banh mi made of pickled carrots and daikon radish. There’s also a house sriracha aioli alongside. For his part, Travis says, he’s a big fan of the banh mi, but also would happily eat Kuya’s Arroz Caldo, a Filipino congee, or rice porridge, that holds the same place in homes that chicken soup does here: It’s made of chicken, ginger, garlic, black pepper, and fish sauce, then topped with crispy garlic chips, scallions, and lime for squeezing. “It sells like crazy when we put it on the menu,” Travis says. “They eat it when it’s hot out in the Philippines, but it’s a great winter soup.”

And for now, Kuya’s is settled happily at One Main. It’s a four-way partnership with the space’s owners, Shane Niles and Josh Niebling, who ran Kuya’s predecessor. “They believe in us and what we can do,” Patty says. “We all help each other on how we can provide for the town.”

— by Rob Gurwitt