Gari Shoyu Sando Company Delights with Fluffy, Japanese Sandwiches
- Max McCrory
- Sep 30, 2025
- 3 min read
Gary Marshall began conceptualizing the idea for Gari Shoyu Sando Company (G.S. Sando Co.) while he was still a chef at Soju in 2022. He hosted pop-up dinners at Soju and other local restaurants, while also traveling to breweries with a cooler to sell his Japanese-inspired sandwiches. Now, three years later, he’s landed a food truck, which has allowed him to experiment and expand his reach. He continues to visit local breweries such as Allegheny City Brewing, Trace Brewing and Dancing Gnome Brewery on the regular. You can find his weekly schedule on his Instagram (@g.s.sando_co).
Now, you may be wondering: how is a Japanese sandwich different from your typical American sandwich? The answer is the bread. Marshall makes house-made Japanese milk bread, which is prepared by cooking a paste made of flour and milk. This paste gives the bread its distinct fluffy texture that almost melts in your mouth. When you look at it, you might mistake it for white sandwich bread, but once you take a bite, you’ll be happily proved wrong.
The sandwiches at G.S. Sando Co. are very simple with minimal ingredients, which I honestly prefer. This way I know that each ingredient is high quality and prepared with intentional care. The menu is small, and some of the dishes rotate depending on the day. Both times I visited, the menu was slightly different. Some of the sandwiches include an ebikatsu (crispy shrimp), nasukatsu (breaded eggplant), and tamago (Japanese-style egg salad). Besides sandwiches, offerings include udon, gyoza, and yakiimo (a brûléed sweet potato with sweet potato custard).
The first time I visited, I ordered the tonkatsu sandwich and the pork gyoza. Tonkatsu is a traditional Japanese preparation, where the pork is breaded in panko and deep-fried to perfection. Marshall continues the trend of classic preparation with a sweet and savory katsu sauce, Kewpie mayonnaise, and cabbage. Everything comes together perfectly. The pork is perfectly crispy, and it, along with the cabbage, gives the sandwich a nice crunch. The katsu sauce and mayo blend for a hint of sweetness. The tender bread perfectly rounded out this satisfying dish.
I am a connoisseur of gyoza in Pittsburgh, and these definitely met my standards. The dumplings were juicy and full of savory flavor. The gari shoyu sauce (the truck’s namesake), made from pickled ginger and soy sauce, and rayu (a type of chili oil) gave the dumplings a subtle zing that enhanced the flavor of the pork. I would definitely order these again.
On my next visit, I was excited to try the torikatsu chicken sandwich. The chicken was fried to perfection and was both tender and crispy at the same time. Like the tonkatsu, a bit of cabbage gave the sandwich some freshness. The hit of heat from the spicy cucumbers and chili-garlic sauce was a welcome addition. Out of the two savory sandwiches I enjoyed, I would opt for this one over the tonkatsu, but that’s just personal preference.
I had to opt for a fruit sando for dessert. I’ve seen versions of this beautiful sandwich all over TikTok, from 7-Eleven to aesthetic cafés. The fruit pokes out of a copious amount of sweet cream in between two layers of fluffy bread for the perfect photo. G.S. Sando Co.’s version was not only picture perfect but decadently sweet too. The fluffy bread is fried and then filled with cream and strawberries. The fried bread added a contrast in texture to the cream that I appreciated. This dish was rich, but definitely a must-try.
G.S. Sando Co. is delivering a unique subset of Japanese cuisine. There is nothing like this in Pittsburgh right now. Even if more Japanese sandwich spots pop up in the future, they won’t be able to replicate what Marshall has crafted.