Starting out as a food cart in Victoria BC’s Chinatown neighbourhood in 2001, Noodlebox has grown exponentially, opening up in Barrie and the northern Ontario region.
The Sault Ste. Marie location of Noodlebox opened in July 2023, which is when manager Ronica Sequeira moved up to the Soo from the Barrie location. She says that word of the new business spread quickly, and the town welcomed them with open arms. The restaurant has been busy with both new visitors and a core group of regulars.
“I think that Noodlebox is something different. When we opened there were a lot of local Chinese food restaurants, but there’s a difference. Our food is made fresh, nothing is stored beforehand,” says Ronica.
Noodlebox staff prep food on a daily basis. They receive fresh produce every 2-3 days and chop everything up in-house. The restaurant also embraces the 2000-year-old tradition of cooking with woks— all of their dishes are cooked in that fashion.
Everything on Noodlebox’s menu comes as a “box,” ranging from a teriyaki box, a ginger beef box, a butter chicken box, to even a Bombay mac & cheese box. Everything in these boxes is customizable to fit customers’ dietary needs and preferences. The restaurant offers options like light carbs, doubling up on the vegetables or protein, and using zucchini noodles instead of regular noodles.
“We have a lot of different options that you might not find as easily elsewhere,” says Ronica.
Ronica’s favourite boxes are the butter chicken and the Yangzhou fried rice, the latter of which comes with pork, shrimp, a fried egg, and plenty of vegetables.
Customers tell Ronica that they’re happy to see the food being cooked fresh in front of their eyes. The dishes are essentially being made from scratch when they’re ordered, rather than sitting around or arriving prepackaged. When the business first opened there was a lot of excitement, causing some delays as staff hurried to keep up. But, Ronica says, the community understood.
“People were so nice about it and so understanding. Because that’s how the Soo is.”
The kindness goes both ways. The Noodlebox team is currently collecting canned food, to be donated to Sault Ste. Marie Soup Kitchen Community Centre. They started accepting the donations in May and will continue until the end of June.
This care for the Sault Ste. Marie community is born from the fact that the business is locally-owned. The three owners of this Noodlebox, who own other northern Ontario Noodleboxes and the Barrie location, have lived in Sault Ste. Marie for over 25 years.
From Victoria’s Chinatown to Sault Ste. Marie, the business has grown. But the team at Noodlebox are sticking to a simple recipe: healthy ingredients and a love of community.
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