Sisters blend Japanese flavors with American breakfast comfort at Berkeley’s O2 Eatery

If you're looking for your next brunch destination, two sisters in the East Bay have you covered. It's called O2 Eatery in Berkeley, and it blends classic American breakfast comfort with traditional Japanese flavors. Joining us now, Michelle Orznov, the co-owner, and Angel, the menu creator, and also the niece, the daughter. This is a family business, right? Yes, it is. This looks amazing, let me tell you. And you guys are on Solano Avenue. You moved in. Those of us who have been around for a while, the old Deli Rama place is now you. That's right. Right, and so how has it been? It's been very great. I mean, with food like this, I can imagine, you have really great ingredients is why your food. For example, this comes to mind. These are, what's this? Salmon eggs benedict. Right. So to do a good benedict, you have to, you know, you have the sauce dialed in, the salmon. Who came up with the, who comes up with the menu? Is it a collaboration? It's basically me and my niece and, of course, my sister and my brother-in-law. It's always our passion to cook food and we've always, you know, loved it. Yeah, honestly, we weren't even in the breakfast industry whatsoever, but we knew that we wanted to create a breakfast restaurant and we got the ball running and, like, my mom didn't know anything about cooking anything breakfast-y, but, you know, we opened up and, like, honestly, it's been amazing, like, the support that we get from our customers and, how big our business has boomed i mean you can have this for breakfast really yeah okay good we've got some customers coming in you know we have other items too so i see uh you have uh do you have a blend between a croissant and a and a waffle yes we've got over here croffle yes okay because i've heard about that i haven't tried it yet oh you should try it yeah one thing that you guys are mentioned for is uh your egg dishes are done perfect, perfectly. Who, I mean, if you don't know how to make breakfast food who, how did you learn how to make eggs perfectly? I don't know, I mean she's got that little thing in her, I don't know, just it's marked up and like the Benedicts and everything, like you know, a good cook, yeah she's, you know, she's a good cook. Well, this looks delicious. Um, so O2 Eatery, how long have you been around? A little over, it over two years now, two years now. Okay, right. So and now you're venturing out and you have another restaurant in Albany, it's a sushi place. That's right. So things are going well. You don't expand unless things are going well, exactly. So you've hit a, you've hit a chord. What do you what do you think is the your most popular dish, and is it on this table? Pretty much every, every dishes are very popular, it's just depending on what the customer would want at the moment, yeah. We always get customers asking us like what's the most popular one? We're always like everything, I know. Okay, what are these? We've got some mimosas, so we have like pineapple, um, like cranberry orange and then these are like you know if anybody wants to drink. That's our matcha our, um, matcha latte, people love, very popular does this have alcohol in it? Yes. Good, good. Brian Gallo, where are you oh so good. All right, um, the last thing that I want to ask is, is there any, are there any surprises because you, this is kind of a new venture, it's very popular. What have you learned about breakfast food honestly it's all about our customers i would say like our customers have a lot of love for us and we have a lot of love for our customers and like you know by the way congratulations on your on your award yes tell us about your you have two locations yeah so we actually have this as a main location just breakfast and lunch and then we have our Where's this one located Berkeley location on San Pablo 977 San Pablo in Albany This guy has his own take-home box, I mean he loves working on the show because of all these He has a restaurant back there, actually. One last question that I have about all this is, so you guys bring like a Japanese flair, but this looks just straight up American. Oh, yeah, these are all American. We only brought this salmon bento box, the Japanese stuff. So if I get this, this is going to be just like any old good-looking bacon, avocado, yummy goodness. Yes, it will. And then wouldn't you serve this as well at the same restaurant? Yes, that's right. Oh, people love this bento box. Yeah, brunch. This is a brunch item as well? Yeah. We serve it during breakfast time, too. During breakfast time as well. I'm learning certain things. What are you eating? Are you leaving anything for us over here? Sal, take it easy on that drink over there. We've got to still do the rest of the synergy, my friend. I know. It's the O2 Eatery on Solano Avenue. Ryan's getting ready to take a bunch out of it right now. Look at that. It's a big bite. It's the same thing. Go ahead. Squeeze it. Squeeze it. Nice work. Perfect. Michelle, Angel, thank you for joining us, and thank you for feeding our weatherman. He comes out ready to rock and roll every day. Wow, this food looks fantastic. You want more drinks? Here, let's toast. What's this one, ladies? What's this one here? That's a cranberry mimosa. Cranberry mimosa. All right, I'll take a little sip of this since we're getting ready to go. Brian, you want to wash that down with something, my friend? Come on, my friend. Come on, let's go. You might need that more than I do. Yes, right. Cheers, guys. Thank you. Thank you. And congrats on your big award. Absolutely. Thank you all so much. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. All right.