The IP-oriented restaurateur Andy Nguyen, who’s previously opened concepts based on Hello Kitty and Sonic the Hedgehog, has spent more than a decade chasing his “dream project”: producing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizzeria. After years of indifference and then false starts with the rights holders at Viacom, he’s now partnered under the new ownership at Paramount — which has a pair of TMNT franchise films slated for 2027 and 2028 — on a themed restaurant, which debuts June 20 along Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. “I finally got that green light,” he says, seemingly himself still shell-shocked.
Nguyen’s bodacious vision is a restorationist adaptation, ignoring the live-action amphibians of more recent years in favor of exulting in the aesthetics of the 1987 animated series. “I call it the ‘Millennial Turtles,’” he says. “Those original cartoons, the way they were drawn, there’s a sense of fun that just brings you happiness.”
Josh Silverman, Paramount’s president of global products and experiences, refers to the 1987 series’ look as “a keystone piece of creative” for the franchise and notes that “there’s a term we use: ‘new-stalgia.’ It’s new for kids but nostalgic for adults, often their parents.”
