JokuRoti went from a food truck to Kraken's kitchen
JokuRoti runs the kitchen at Kraken, a bar in Helsinki. Behind it are two friends, Joel and Valtteri, who had never worked in a restaurant before they opened one. They serve roti, wings and fried chicken.
Location
Hietaniemenkatu 2, 00100 Helsinki
Website
Known for
Roti paratha, wings and house sauces
A festival gig and a long-haired hippie
They met driving artists around at Weekend Festival. A mutual friend had already told each of them about the other, so when Valtteri came jogging in a little late, all he had to go on was one photo of Joel. That turned out to be plenty. Long hair, and a smile he could spot from a kilometer away, and he says he knew on the spot they'd be friends. How long they'd actually known each other before going into business together is still a running debate. Joel says about a year. Valtteri says a few weeks.
Burger guys with a roti idea
They started out as burger guys, and honestly still are. But Helsinki already has plenty of burgers, and they wanted to make something nobody else was making. Valtteri had a wild idea tucked in his back pocket. There was no restaurant in town built around roti. Roti paratha is layered with fat, so it cooks up flaky and airy, closer to pastry than to pita, and pretty much anything you fold into it tastes great. The name is a Finnish joke that roughly means "some roti," and that's pretty much the spirit of the whole place.
Neither of them had cooked professionally or worked a floor. What they had was a lot of love for eating. In their own words, JokuRoti is their love letter to every foodie and everyone who's the hero of their own life.
If you don't count a home kitchen, we had no experience at all. This is running on pure passion.
Borrowed kitchens, a truck, then Kraken
The first pop-ups ran out of other restaurants' kitchens on the days those places were closed. They did four or five of those before they got a food truck, and spent two summers cooking out of it. At first it was mostly for friends and family. Then people they didn't know started coming back for more, which was when they started believing in it, because it wasn't just a family member saying the food was good anymore.
Last fall they found the kitchen at Kraken, and in December they opened there. That meant they didn't have to win everything at once. The bar already had its regulars and its licenses, and it wanted real food behind the bar instead of frozen snacks, so the fit was there from the start. Signing for a fixed space was still the most nerve-wracking thing they've done. A pop-up is easy to calculate, a set amount per day, and a lease is a whole different thing.
Orange jumpsuits and a very committed logo
The look came together the same way the name did, fast and without much planning. They wanted it a little rough and a little street, with a sense of humor. At the early pop-ups they wore orange prison jumpsuits, and the orange stuck, partly because no other restaurant in town really owns that color. Black, white and orange have been the brand since then, the sauces carry their own names, and the mascot showed up once they had a restaurant to put him in.
How committed are they to it? At a floorball tournament on a lake a few hours from Helsinki, where they were running a food tent all weekend, someone had brought a tattoo artist out into the woods. They both walked away with the JokuRoti logo tattooed on their lower backs.
Easily the most painful tattoo I've ever had. And my arm and chest are full.
The one thing that was simple
Joel knew Fiest's Elias from high school, and Elias saw one of his Instagram stories and asked if they'd want to try Fiest. JokuRoti ended up as one of Fiest's very first customers, back in 2024, and Joel has even gone on to support Fiest with sales.
What they like day to day is that the checkout keeps up with whatever idea they come up with next. They run more than one menu at once, and when their card terminal broke, they just took payments on a phone. When they spun up a pizza pop-up, the checkout was running on a phone the same day. This summer they built two pizza bikes, a seven or eight meter "pizza train" that rolled from beach to beach, with payments on an iPhone. They'll admit the bikes were a logistical headache. The payments weren't.
With the pizza bikes, pretty much nothing was simple except the payment system.
If we'd had to fiddle with the checkout and missed sales because of it, that would've been pretty detrimental, especially while we're still small and growing.
- Runs several menus in the same system at the same time
- Takes payments on a phone, whether a terminal's down or the kitchen's on wheels
- Had a new pop-up's checkout running the same day
- Website built by Fiest
- Pickup orders through Fiest online ordering
Want a website like JokuRoti's? Learn more about websites by Fiest.
What to order, and what's coming
First time in? They'll both point you to the Joku OG Roti with crispy chicken, the only thing that's been on the menu since the very first pop-up. Valtteri will also try to talk you into the new pulled pork roti. Then there are the wings, which some people have called the best in Stadi, and some people from Tampere have called the best in Finland. They're happy to take either compliment.
This fall they're launching a spicy wing challenge, complete with a hall of pain for the reddest, most tearful faces, and there's more cooking in the same kitchen too. The bigger goal is to be known as the best and funniest bar food in Finland.
Good food, in a good mood, somewhere that looks a bit different. This is definitely the place.
Kraken and beyond
A closer look at the room, counter, and details behind the story.
More from the shift
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