Three restaurants now share a single stretch of Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena’s Playhouse District: HiHo Cheeseburger, KazuNori, and Cheesesteaks by Matū. Each has its own following and its own rhythm. The newest of the three is also the most stripped down—a narrow menu built around one sandwich and cooked behind a window.
“We were trying to capture the feeling of going to a cheesesteak window,” said Scott Linder, one of the founders. “That feeling that you get going to a mom-and-pop place in Philadelphia.”
Cheesesteaks by Matū grew out of Matu, the Beverly Hills steak restaurant where the sandwich first appeared as a menu item. It wasn’t intended to become its own concept. But customers noticed. “We started serving it in Beverly Hills and we got great feedback,” Linder said. “And the cheesesteak just became so successful that we said, ‘Well, you know, why don’t we give the people what they want? Give them their standalone location.’”
All of the beef items from both Matū and HiHo Cheeseburger feature 100% grass-fed Wagyu from First Light Farms in New Zealand, which Linder credits as a major part of the group’s success.
The Pasadena restaurant now operates alongside HiHo Cheeseburger and KazuNori, three separate businesses that maintain independence while benefiting from proximity. “We’re not a hospitality group,” Linder said. ““But when one business finds a piece of great real estate, we work together to make the most of those kinds of opportunities.”
Matū’s Cheesesteak approach avoids unnecessary variation. The sandwich begins with the same beef served at the steak restaurant, sliced thin and chopped on the grill, paired with Cooper Sharp American cheese, grilled onions, and an Italian long hot pepper sourced from the East Coast. The bread is made by a proprietary baker and finished on site. “There’s nothing that we’re hiding behind,” Linder said. “It’s some steak with salt.”
The emphasis on simplicity is deliberate. As Linder quotes Charlie Munger: “Take a simple thing and take it seriously.”
Even the huge potato chips follow that principle. Fried in beef tallow, they arrive crisp and unadorned. Customers sometimes hesitate when they see chips instead of fries. “People are usually, they go, you serve potato chips?” Linder said. “And then they eat them, and they’re like, we’re getting another bag of chips.”
Cheesesteak shops remain relatively uncommon on the West Coast, but Linder sees the sandwich as universally recognizable. “There’s many iterations of meat and cheese on a bun,” he said. “The cheesesteak is just one of those.”
The restaurant itself reflects that same focus—no theatrics, no reinterpretation, just careful attention to the essentials. In that sense, the cheesesteak has not been reinvented. It’s just been given its own window.
Cheesesteaks by Matū is at 625-B East Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA. (626) 657-3675.
