Crowdfunding helps Kaedama ‘food bus’ open up doors to new restaurant

Kaedama, an El Paso food bus serving ramen, has opened up its new restaurant in West El Paso.

The local food bus has been serving thousands of different bowls of ramen for three years now, posting up by bars until they sold out. Their menu includes ramen, seaweed salad and sushi burritos.

“It’s wonderful broth, ramen noodles, nothing like what you get in the packet, with all the salt and nothing in it, we have awesome ingredients and quality food,” Co-owner Gabe Valencia said.

In October, the owners decided to create a Kickstarter campaign to help them fund a new restaurant.

“People would often tell us well why don’t you guys prep more food? And we would love to, but we were very limited on space and manpower and we kind of still are now, it’s a small restaurant so today will be our first real test,” Valencia said.

By their November deadline, the business had 93 backers, raising $16,171 and surpassing their goal of $15,000. Backers donated anywhere from $5 to $1,000.

“That little bit of extra of what we needed to get the equipment, our permits, so they definitely made this happen for us and we thank them,” Valencia said.

Ryan Jimenez, a regular customer, tells ABC-7 he visited the food bus on a daily basis.

“They used to be by Monarch, parked out around 7 PM, I used to be there first in line pretty much every day,” Jimenez said.

When Jimenez heard of their efforts to fundraise money, he became one of the businesses backers.

“It’s really cool to see local people actually setting goals for themselves, and accomplishing them, and I thought it would be cool to see someone reach their dream and make sushi burritos,” Jimenez said.

The restaurant is located at 204 Boston near the Cincinnati Entertainment District and by the streetcar route. With consistent traffic near the area, customers say they anticipate the business growing.

“I think it’s such a good place, I’m really excited that El Paso decided to open this, it’s a cute little strip and I think it’s going to do really well,” first-time customer Celia Gutierrez said.

“It just feels weird because now it’s our restaurant that we’re working in, so that’s the weird thing. It’s ours now,” Valencia said.

Kaedama is open Tuesday-Sunday. The grand opening is underway from noon to midnight Friday.