A new pop-up inside The Source marketplace in RiNo is serving up shrimp, hot sausage, fried catfish, and fried green tomato sandwiches for prices that hover between $12 and $16, alongside a $4 cup of gumbo and $3.45 red beans and rice. Poor Boys Louisiana Po' Boys and Kitchen opened this month at 3330 Brighton Blvd., the work of chef Kenta Kamo and Louisiana expat Isaac Woo, who say Denver has plenty of Cajun restaurants but nothing dedicated purely to the po' boy sandwich.
Kamo, a Baton Rouge native and chef-owner of Temaki Den, told Westword that there's plenty of Cajun restaurants, but there's really no good po' boys in Denver. He and Woo, described as a Louisiana expat and catering-event host, opened Poor Boys within three weeks of first developing the idea, moving quickly from concept to service. The stripped-down operation runs on a simple menu, a banner, a website, and an Instagram account rather than a full buildout.
The pop-up occupies a stall with its own layered history at The Source. Kamo originally started using the former Acorn and Bellota space as a prep area for Temaki Den, according to Westword's reporting, before deciding to turn it into a full pop-up. That space had sat mostly dormant since Bellota, a modern Mexican restaurant from Half Eaten Cookie Hospitality, closed its Source location in September 2023, as Denver Westword reported at the time.
Why a Sushi Chef Is Running a Po' Boy Shop
The arrangement traces back to Temaki Den's own renovation timeline. Kamo's hand-roll restaurant inside The Source, a Michelin Guide Recommended pick in Colorado every year from 2023 through 2025, is undergoing extensive renovations expected to wrap between late September and mid-October. Poor Boys is meant to keep the kitchen team busy and test menu items and customer interest in the meantime, with Kamo and Woo saying they'll keep the pop-up open at The Source as long as they're permitted, assuming business stays good.
Before launching Temaki Den in 2020 alongside Sushi Den co-founder Toshi Kizaki, Kamo was raised between Baton Rouge and Japan, studied finance at LSU, and served as executive chef at Denver's Ototo, according to background reported by Denver Westword. Woo brings his own Louisiana pedigree to the venture as operator of Catahoula Catering, a local catering company known for dishes like red beans cooked with smoked turkey legs, per Camellia Brand. Together, the pair even made their own boudin for the pop-up's boudin balls, a $6 item built from pork shoulder, liver, rice, onions, celery, and bell pepper.
What's on the Menu, and What It Costs
The signature roast beef debris sandwich, at $16, features braised roast beef in gravy piled onto a New Orleans-style po' boy roll, and the same beef shows up in an $8 order of debris fries. The catfish Denver, at $24, layers fried catfish under a green chile crawfish etouffee, while crawfish etouffee fries run $10 and Cajun fries go for $3. The shrimp sandwich and fried catfish sandwich each cost $16, the hot sausage sandwich is $13, and the fried green tomato sandwich runs $13 as well. Every sandwich comes dressed with lettuce, pickles, tomato, and mayonnaise, and Kamo told Westword that a traditional fully dressed po' boy relies on good mayonnaise rather than reinvented sauces.
Bread was the one ingredient the partners treated as non-negotiable. In Louisiana, po' boys typically ride on loaves from Leidenheimer Baking Company, but that bread doesn't travel well, reportedly lasting only about a day outside its intended climate. Kamo and Woo considered Vinh Xuong Bakery as their only real option for bread, turning to the Little Saigon institution that has operated on South Federal Boulevard for more than 24 years, according to a 2014 Denver Westword profile of the family-owned bakery. The Vietnamese French baguette's thin, crispy crust turns out to be a close cousin to the bread that built the po' boy's reputation in New Orleans.
Local Farms Meet Gulf Coast Seafood
Poor Boys leans on a hybrid supply chain to pull off the sandwiches: core seafood like crawfish, catfish, and oysters comes directly from Louisiana purveyors, while meats and produce are sourced locally from Colorado producers including Switch Gears Farm, Croft Family Farm, and Miraflora Wagyu, per the restaurant's own website. The roast beef debris sandwich, for instance, is built on local Wagyu brisket and beef chuck rather than imported beef. It's a sourcing model that keeps the Gulf Coast flavor intact while still working within Colorado's agricultural network.
The pop-up's name nods to the sandwich's own origin story. The po' boy dates back to the 1929 New Orleans streetcar strike, when former streetcar conductors Clovis and Benjamin Martin began serving free, oversized French bread sandwiches to striking transit workers they called poor boys, according to Poor Boys' own account of the dish's history. Kamo says the goal now is simply to run a po' boy shop, with a focus on simple food built around quality and relatively affordable prices.
A Bigger Moment for Cajun Food in Denver
Poor Boys isn't arriving in a vacuum. It lands amid a broader wave of Cajun and Creole openings across the metro in 2026, including Creole Po'boys at Edgewater Public Market, which Hoodline reported opened in February and also sources bread from Vinh Xuong Bakery, and plans for The Acadian, a 4,900-square-foot Cajun restaurant recently detailed in Hoodline's coverage of LoHi's mortuary-turned-dining hub. The Source itself has seen plenty of turnover this year too, with James Beard-nominated Reunion Bread relocating to South Pearl Street and Mexican eatery El Chingon signing a 3,100-square-foot lease.
For now, Poor Boys is open Thursday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. inside The Source Market Hall, with hours tied to the pop-up's run through September. Kamo has said he plans to find a permanent home for Poor Boys if the concept keeps drawing crowds, though nothing beyond The Source stall has been finalized. Diners curious whether Denver can support a dedicated po' boy shop can find the current menu and hours at poorboysdenver.com.
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