Ghost kitchen chops up NYC-style sandwiches in Fresno — sometimes with a stack of cash

Eddie Wutangsy exudes a kind of energetic chaos; whether he’s getting caught on social media dancing ringside at an AWE match (as happened at the Save Mart Center last week) or greeting customers on the street outside Hot Spot Kitchen, where he runs his My Guy Market.

“Usually, we should have some music playing,” he says from behind the grill in the ghost kitchen/commissary on Belmont Avenue, which he shares with three other food vendors.

It’s 11 a.m. and orders are already stacking up through the restaurant’s online app, which Wutangsy checks from his phone between working the grill and running orders out to waiting customers.

He combines diced onion, ground beef and slices of American cheese, which he slaps on a toasted french roll with ketchup and mayonnaise. It’s the market’s specialty, a sandwiched version of a hamburger known as a “chopped cheese.”

“Where the (expletive) you going to get a chopped cheese outside of New York?” Wutangsy says, with more than a hint of pride.

Those who know the man, know he’s a self-proclaimed “New York head.” He loves the music, sure — his chosen surname is a reference to the New York rap legend Wu-Tang Clan — but also the art and culture and food.

It was a trip to New York that sparked the idea for Wutangsy to quit working for other restaurants (at one point he held down kitchen positions at KuniSama, Benaddiction and Chef Paul’s Cafe) and go out on his own.

The way he tells it, he walked 20 miles from Manhattan into Brooklyn, through the neighborhoods made famous by rappers like ODB (Old Dirty Bastard) and Mos Def.

He had 20 different sandwiches, from 20 different bodegas; New York’s version of the corner store.

My Guy Market is a kind of “virtual bodega.”

The menu is just four items.

There’s the NY-style chopped cheese; a bacon and cherry pepper version called the Chop Smoke; the Hippy Flip, with shitaki and enoki mushrooms that can be done with vegan cheese; and a bacon egg and cheese, which is a bodega staple.

It’s not the only staple you can get from My Guy Market. You can get a single roll of toilet paper, a pack of Magnum condoms, or a Bic lighter and rolling papers. It also offers a variety of imported snack foods and drinks from Korea and Japan.

There are some pizza-flavored chips have been popular lately, Wutangsy says.

My Guy Market is open for to-go orders only — 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays — though the hours can change depending on how busy it gets. After nearly a year in business, Wutangsy finally hired an employee to help in the kitchen, but things can still get slammed.

At one point last week, he had to pause incoming orders to get caught up.

Of course, Wutangsy is also about his hometown and there’s no shortage of community connections at My Guy Market. The Fresno tech upstart Ordrslip designed the mobile App. He gets meat from Renna’s Meat Market and bread from Max’s Bakery. Most of the imported snacks and sodas come from Central Fish Company.

Last week, the market started selling lime-green glazed donuts, a collaboration with Lucky’s Donut House.

“We all look out for each other,” Wutangsy says.

And he looks out for his customers.

Recently, he has taken to hiding banded stacks of cash ($100 in dollar bills) inside to-go bags. Sometimes, he straight-up hands out the money, just to see the reaction. Sure, it’s a cut-in on his bottom line, but it puts a smile on his face, he says.

“It’s fun chaos.”