Boo Koo Looks to Expand

, the tiny downtown restaurant that has been serving up Asian street food for the past 18 months, has its sights set on expansion.

Co-owner and Mill Valley resident Matt Holmes said he’s in negotiations with a landlord in Lafayette to open a second location for the popular spot. And while Holmes acknowledges that Lafayette offers a similar market to Mill Valley for a concept that has taken off locally, he says the deal would also potentially benefit the Mill Valley location, which “is bursting at the seams.”

Holmes says Boo Koo’s tiny space that was formerly occupied by Ino Sushi has restricted the restaurant’s operations and storage as its popularity has grown.

“We just have nowhere to store and prep everything,” he says. “A larger unit in Lafayette or elsewhere would definitely help the Mill Valley shop. This is as much an effort to make the Mill Valley space work – we’re just so short on space there.”

Holmes says he made unsuccessful attempts to expand within the center that also includes and the , where a a location of the sandwich shop chain but was and amid . In a long-term lease and with growing storage needs, Boo Koo's owners are hoping the second location can help, he said.

The Asian street food restaurant , a second location of Darryl and Carolyn Rudolph’s popular Santa Cruz restaurant of the same name. In September 2011, the restaurant and made a minor tweak of its menu. The new name is a play on the French “beaucoup” (plentiful, bountiful) and has roots in Vietnamese slang. Holmes said it reflects a shift away from Charlie Hong Kong’s implied Chinese food concept to a broader Asian palate.

Holmes, a principal at real estate firm Retail West, firm, says additional expansion is possible.

“We don’t envision ourselves as a Starbucks, for sure,” he says. “But I could see us in select markets outside Mill Valley.”