South End’s newest brunch pop-up puts a southeast Asian spin on sandwiches

It all started with a sandwich.

Ashley Hart wasn’t necessarily trying to open a restaurant when she started playing around with a new breakfast sandwich.

As the director of operations for Cheat’s Cheesesteaks, Hart wanted to create something that would appeal to people walking along the nearby Rail Trail. The idea was simple: Take a breakfast sandwich and give it a southeast Asian twist.

That sandwich — The Daybreaker — was eventually added to the Cheat’s breakfast menu.

Then she started thinking bigger.

“In the back of my mind for a really long time, I had this whole dual concept leaning more toward the Asian side of things,” Hart told CharlotteFive.

The sandwich, made with Vietnamese sausage, egg and a Vietnamese-style sauce on a brioche bun, became the namesake for her team’s newest concept.

Daybreaker is a breakfast-and-lunch pop-up featuring a menu Hart designed.

For Hart, the menu is a way to bring pieces of her own background to the table. She is half Vietnamese and half Cambodian, with Lao and Thai influences in her family, as well.

“Vietnamese and Cambodian cuisine kind of go hand in hand,” she said. “There’s a lot of crossover. So I wanted to get a little bit of that influence throughout the menu.”

That shows up in more than just the Daybreaker sandwich.

The Crispy Morning puts a classic bacon, egg and cheese combination on a scallion pancake, an ingredient Hart has loved since childhood.

“I grew up eating scallion pancakes,” she said. “It was one of my favorite breakfasts, and I’m very, very fond of them. Being able to do this, I was able to put everything that I wanted to eat as a kid on the menu.”

The menu also reflects Hart’s fascination with Japan. She and her husband, Ryan, spent five weeks there on their honeymoon, and the trip became inspiration for the Tokyo Monte Cristo, a take on the classic sandwich made with roasted turkey, Black Forest ham and Swiss cheese on brioche.

Instead of the traditional strawberry jam or maple syrup, Hart uses blackberry and yuzu jam, then finishes the sandwich with cherry blossom powdered sugar made with sakura flowers sourced from a farm in Japan.

“I took a lot of inspiration from that trip and brought it back,” Hart said.

That Japanese influence extends to Daybreaker’s drinks, too. The menu features several matcha drinks, including an elderflower matcha tonic, matcha cloud, sparkling matcha lemonade and a blackberry yuzu matcha milk.

“It might be different for some people, but educating people and hopefully having them love it when they try it is part of our goal,” Hart said.

Daybreaker’s menu stretches beyond the breakfast sandwich that started it all.

Breakfast options include the Crispy Morning with a scallion pancake, egg, Havarti and bacon, along with vegetarian options such as the Truffle Egg and Cheese.

Lunch options include The Big Dill, with chicken salad and dill Caesar dressing, and The Emilia, a combination of burrata and mortadella. Other options include The Negima with grilled marinated chicken and the vegetarian Niwa, made with maple hoisin-glazed tofu.

There are also beignets in three flavors, chips, Japanese potato salad and soup, plus drinks like cold brew and sparkling lavender lemonade.

Hart said the menu isn’t meant to be set in stone, noting that Daybreaker plans to operate as a pop-up for now, using customer feedback to shape what comes next.

“We’ll be able to rotate through some menu items,” Hart said. “It’s definitely going to be a seasonal thing.”

“I don’t see the Daybreaker going anywhere,” she added. “That scallion pancake is here to stay, because I’m always going to want to eat it.”

But for Hart, the most personal part of Daybreaker might be the Vietnamese sausage.

She developed the recipe as her own attempt to recreate the sausages she grew up eating, drawing from the cooking of her grandparents and aunts. There was just one problem: None of them wrote anything down.

“It’s all in their head.,” Hart said. “There are no measurements. It’s very much a ‘measure with your heart’ type of feel.”

“There’s something about your grandparents making food,” she added. “It just tastes better from them.”

So she put her own spin on the dishes she loved as a kid, and she hopes the flavors will impress customers.

“I really just want to get people’s feedback,” Hart said.

Daybreaker pop-ups will launch at Cheat’s Cheesesteaks in South End on Friday, Sept. 18, and run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

Location: Cheat’s Cheesesteaks, 2137 Hawkins St., Charlotte, NC 28203

Cuisine: Sandwiches, coffee

Instagram: @daybreakerclt