One sells noodle bowls. The other has skulls. See inside 2 new SLO businesses

Two new businesses have landed next door to each other on Monterey Street in San Luis Obispo.

But they couldn’t be any more dissimilar.

One will fill hungry appetites, while the other will satisfy people who have a curiosity for the bizarre.

Hungry Mother, a Southern restaurant with Southeast Asian flavors, started out as a barbecue trailer in Santa Maria run by its owners Tommy and Alli Stein. A year later in 2018, the Steins converted to a food truck and were looking for a brick-and-mortar location.

They found one in Suite B at 1255 Monterey St, where SLO Provisions used to be.

“We always knew we would eventually want a brick-and-mortar,” Alli Stein told The Tribune. “We’ve been keeping our eye out for years, and when this spot became available, we were just so excited. The building owners are so kind, the community is amazing and we’re just so happy to have this little spot.”

In its little spot, Hungry Mother serves noodle bowls, shrimp and grits, bánh mí, po’boy sandwiches and a weekly special, usually a curry.

“We designed a menu, basically of food we like to eat and what we feed our kids and what we eat,” she said. “We’re not trying to recreate any particular dish necessarily or be any one thing.”

The dishes are also inspired by the Steins’ travels in Australia and the connections they made while abroad.

“We’re drawing influence from our travels, from people we’ve met, from family, from all traditions that we have experience and appreciate,” Stein said. “We make food that we like and that we think shows love and is healthy. So our menu, we designed it to be flexible.”

The menu is customizable in the sense that people can pick their protein, sauce and how spicy a dish can be, Stein said.

Hungry Mother is open Monday and Tuesday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Wednesday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Stein said they plan to expand their hours as they get more staff.

For more information, visit its website or Instagram.

Bizarre Antiques and Oddities

While Hungry Mother is filling bellies, right next door another new shop is catering to the bizarre.

Bizarre Antiques and Oddities is not new to San Luis Obispo County, as it opened its doors in Atascadero two years ago.

But its owner, Erin Binger, recently moved her skulls, wet specimens and other oddities to Suite A at 1255 Monterey St.

“I really wanted to focus on strange, unusual, rare stuff that kind of makes people cringe,” Binger told The Tribune. “If it invokes a reaction, I want it.”

The antique oddities shop has 13 vendors, selling taxidermy, medical items, funeral items, art pieces and depression-era glass. It even features a clown corner where life-sized Art the Clown stands alongside a deep sea diver.

Conjoined teddy bears, insect art and a bookshelf full of metaphysical topics and medical texts are also in the shop.

“It’s really packed in here,” Binger said. “It’s a small shop, it’s about 1,500 square feet, but it can easily take an hour to get through the whole shop, to really get a good look at everything.”

Binger said the price range for goods is between a 50-cent bin of little trinkets and a $3,000 hand-carved buffet.

“There’s so many different things in here at so many different price ranges that I could furnish an entire house — or you could just buy stickers for a dollar,” she said. “Most of our demographic being either tourists or college kids, not everybody can afford a $3,000 moose or a $2,000 chair.”

Besides the variety of oddities in the store, Binger brings in a tarot reader every two to three weeks on Sundays and hosts her own workshops about creating oddities and art styles.

“What they’re paying for is if they were to come in here and buy that same piece off my wall, it would be the same price if they had made it themselves,” Binger said. “But that’s the experience of learning how to create those pieces themselves that they’re really paying for.”

The price starts at $100 per person and rises based on the cost of supplies, Binger said.

She is planning a quarterly art show on June 7 to show off her craft, as well as a second annual Vampire Ball in October.

“Instead of just a basic vampire ball, we’re going with a bloody masquerade vampire ball, which is going to be very ‘Interview with a Vampire’esque,” she said. “We’re going to have 350 tickets to sell, so it’s going to be good.”

Bizarre Antiques and Oddities is open Wednesday to Sunday from 12 to 6 p.m. For more information, visit its Instagram or Facebook.

This story was originally published May 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM.