Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 9, 1 September 2015 — ELEVATING THE FOOD TRUCK [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ELEVATING

THE

FOOD

TRUCK

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Dark clouds hover over the Ko'olau mountain range and a bright rainbow forms. You ean see the reiiection of the rainbow in the Flyin' Ahi food truck, a gleaming and spotless version of the modern food truck. Think the plate luneh, elevated. The Flyin' Ahi's signature is raw fish. Owner Leroy Melchor knows customers eat with their eyes first. His f food truck is spotless because, when you're dealing ^ ; with a product as sensitive as raw fish, sanitation ean ī make or break a business. [ . Flyin ' Ahi will be a regular at the new Makers & Tasters Kewalo, a new food park at Kewalo Basin. Street Grindz is the driving force behind the concept.

I"We'U have great live music. We want to bring in some of the hula hālau. Our bar program is offering really niee tableside service and pitcher service. We just want to elevate the whole street food type of experience that people have when they eome to our daily locations," said owner and CEO Poni Askew. Street Grindz has been doing a small pop-up with a handful of street food vendors for the past few weeks, whieh has been very busy during the luneh hour that takes on a eool parklike atmosphere for families in the evening. Makers & Tasters Kewalo will be on 60,000 square feet of land leased from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs . OHA is currently in the master-planning I ; phase for the use of nine parcels in the Kaka'ako

L Makai area, according to commercial property manager ■ Allen Kam. Leasing the property to Street Grindz is f- designed to bring activity and excitement to the area. I "Street Grindz brings out the best of Hawai'i nei. It I is an exciting and established Native Hawaiian-owned L business that provides other loeal business with a venue f to provide 'ono food to loeal people," Kam said. ■: Askew explains Makers & Tasters Kewalo this way: ■ ■ "The concept is about bringing together two eommunip ties, whieh is the maker community and ultimately what | we eall the taster community, and integrating our street ■ food vendors that we had at Street Grindz for the last * five years and bringing them to the community as a daily I. operation. Rather than having a once-a-month ehanee at K eating from all the trucks, you ean eat from them every ■; day, seven days a week for luneh and dinner." ■ . Askew said the popular Eat the Street will continue S : monthly at the Makers & Tasters site. The once-a-month ■ event will have more vendors and activities than the ■_ daily operation. K The new concept is causing a lot of excitement in 1.' the community, according to food writer Olena Heu. "I am really looking forward to the Makers & Tasters B launeh as it will continue to push the envelope for new k, and exciting food, delicacies and innovative bites. There W is a feeling of excitement when it comes to food and

supporting something new." Running a food business ean be difficult. It takes mueh more than a great chef to run a successful food truck. Askew said, "The day and age when you could be the manapua truck and drive around with some music as your marketing plan doesn't exist anymore." Over at the Flyin' Ahi truck, Melchor is plating his signature Flyin' Ahi plate. First some rice, topped with cucumber and sprouts. Then he tops it with his freshly made poke of 'ahi, salmon, smoked tako, taegu, eueumber, limu, 'inamona and secret ingredients he won't reveal. Then he hands customers a package of nori, because he wants the plate to be reminiscent of a sushi hand roll. He finishes the plate with a brownie. It is the sweet to halanee all the savory.

In his business, no detail is too small. Melchor spent a lot of time studying every aspect of the business. He studied food, the industry and the permitting process and what he couldn't find online, he asked others. His wife, Loke, said, "I think what I learned is the importance of pilina or relationships, because along the way there's always been people who've been willing to support us." Askew was one of them. She helped them navigate the waters of the industry and to develop a business and marketing plan. Askew said, "If a food vendor takes a little time to invest in marketing and a business plan it will take them further than their grandmother's recipe will ever take them. So you ean pop up your truck or tent and serve a very good pot of stew, but if nobody is inclined to go to you because you don't have good marketing and branding then you'll never be a successful business off that really good pot of stew." Larry said he spent a lot of time bouncing ideas off of Askew, and she helped himanalyze the marketplace and decide whether his dreams could heeome reality. Loke, a Kamehameha Schools teacher, said she was initially semi-supportive of her husband's dream but decided it was time to "go big or go home." She said the

food truck is something she and her husband ean share with their four children ranging in age from 4 to 15. "It's a good lesson for our own kids: find your own passion. That's something we talk a lot about in school too in the classroom is to follow your passion. So we had to be supportive of that," said Loke. "inRTUOV8 €¥€1^' In order to help vendors stay in business, Askew hopes to soon launeh what she calls the "Makers Acad- Ji A--emy." She said it would be a "a street food or a small v brick and mortar food business school and teaching them marketing and business planning." She would bring in chef consultants who ean help vendors learn about the business side of the food indus- i '■%

try such as, "if you ean ehop that steak a different ' way ean you get more yield out of the steak." S She'd also bring those who ean help vendors navigate the government rules and regulations. 3. Food writer Heu says Street Grindz has a repu- .3^ tation for helping, saying they have "opened a lot - Y of doors, opportunities and created a fan base for ī ■&! the up-and-coming chefs of Hawai'i. Not only o" do they help broaden exposure for the chefs, but lnfc they assist with having them actively test out their business model and service plan." -"ī Askew is also setting her sights on helping out # farmers. It's part of a whole "virtuous cycle," she 'r- 7? explains. The restaurant community should be very interested in helping the agricultural eommunity. A fresher and better product only helps ~v^j

street food vendors so they should be very interested in :.p, 1 A helping farmers . : e < "I think we have a community and a market eolleetively that ean contribute back to sourcing food locally on the island and working closer with our farmer eom- 1 munity," said Askew. ' ^ Many food vendors, she said, end up buying their produce at big box retailers because they do not have .'■? the business volume or time to deal with loeal farmers. \jl But she says good things will happen if the street food v i;i vendors band together. "Although we have a wide variety of food vendors, ,3 Askew said, "I ean guarantee that there are top five to i ten (items) that every food vendor will purchase. If we J ean take 50 percent of those (items) and work them V* into a loeal agricultural plan, I think we ean contribute back positively to the agricultural community and get some of those purchases out of Costco and back into ; the loeal community." t She said she works with 250 food vendors now and -O'l ■ plans to double that in the next two years. She said Street Grindz would act as the middleman ; to find and source the agricultural products. A "We know the ( street food) industry is very interested :: (A-;, in supporting the agricultural community. At the end of the day if it makes dollars and sense, we should do it." ■

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v Flyin' Ahi's owner Leroy Melchor and his wife, Loke. - Photo: Pmneine Murray

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