OB Noodle House Owner Gives Back to Ocean Beach Elementary

OB Noodle House Bar 1502 owner Steve Yeng with “Barmageddon” host Mo Mandel. (Credit: TruTV)

Bar 1502’s Steve Yeng Donates ‘Barmageddon’ Winnings to OB Elementary

By Matthew Wood

OB Noodle House owner Steve Yeng further cemented his status as a reality television star with his recent appearance on the TruTV show “Barmageddon.”

He also showed off his love for the community when he donated his winnings from the show – $10,000 – to the Ocean Beach Elementary School.

“I love that school and I owe a lot to it,” he said. “I just have my fondest memories from there. It’s where I learned to speak English. It’s where I met my wife. Such a great place.”

OB Elementary Principal Marco Drapeau said the donation makes him proud to be a part of the school.

“I’m just humbled and amazed,” he said. “It’s a great example of looking out for the greater good of the community. I don’t know anyone who couldn’t use an extra 10 grand, so for him to give it to us is just amazing.”

Yeng earned the big payday on the show by beating out his competition down the street at South Beach Bar & Grille.

For those unfamiliar with the format, it pits two bar owners against each other as they manage the opposing bar’s staff for a week. They square off for a night of competition at the end of the week and whoever earns more money with the opposite staff comes home with the cash.

It’s now the second national TV show to feature Yeng. He also appeared on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” show, hosted by Guy Fieri.

“It was pretty tedious stuff,” Yeng said about his latest foray as a TV star. “We were miked up for 15 hours a day. It’s totally different from DDD. There’s no drama over there. Just highlighting good food.”

For those who haven’t yet seen the show (set your DVR, as TruTV shows reruns all the time) it depicted the two bars in a very different light.

South Beach was seen as a business-first establishment with a crowd of quieter regulars.

On the other hand, OB Noodle House’s Bar 1502 staff was shown partying it up, giving away shots and generally not being as serious.

“They tried to paint us as frat boys, like all we do is party,” Yeng said. “But we know our stuff. I’m really proud of my staff, the way they carried themselves.”

Yeng implemented a pork belly taco to the South Beach menu, as well as his patented peanut butter whiskey shot that is a big hit at Bar 1502.

In the end, his innovations won out, earning the big prize.

Now, the question is, how will the school spend it? Drapeau said he wasn’t positive where the money would go, but he had a few ideas.

One is to put back some planning days his staff lost due to budget cuts. He said teachers were getting 10 days to plan as part of a state funding program. But that ran out this year.

“We’d like to sustain some of those. Something like this could help with that,” he said.

Drapeau would also like to invest in social education programming. The money could be a catalyst for implementing a long-term program at the school.

“Getting kids to learn to interact,” he explained. “We want to find a way to teach kids to solve problems on their own. If we can give them the tools and strategies to solve their own affairs, that will pay dividends down the road.”

The money will go straight to the school through a discretionary account, meaning it won’t have to go through the school district or any other bureaucracy before OB Elementary sees it.

Drapeau said the donation is just a reflection of the power of the OB community.

“The cool thing is it’s a local guy doing local good,” he said. “It’s so great. It’s an example of a guy who could live anywhere he wants, but he chooses to stay here in OB.”