Akira's Korean Fusion Fund
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Akira’s Korean Fusion is the culmination of a 5 year journey that began in my little home kitchen with 20 plates of bulgogi, rice and kimchi that I prepared and delivered myself on Wednesdays. It was a way to make some extra money for my son’s upcoming birthday. I am a fulltime Dad and work very hard to take care of my son. He is my main motivation. Over the course of 2 years, my small business grew to 70-100 plates a week with hired help and a delivery guy covering 8 cities from Temple to Austin. I developed a reputation for consistently delicious, traditional Korean food.
I decided to bring Korean Fusion to my home town of Killeen, Texas through the LaTaKorea food trailer. It was the next stage of my growing business. With the foundation I built with my delivery service, the trailer became very successful, very fast. I offered unique and extremely eye pleasing dishes with Korean twists that you couldn’t get anywhere else in our area. It was my first legitimate culinary business and I was learning something new everyday. I have no formal culinary or business training. I learned everything from books, the internet and the hard way, through trial and error. I can cook, I am good with people, extremely courteous and I’m a stickler for detail. This has turned out to be a winning formula. My team and I worked diligently for a year and a half in that scorching hot, little trailer with no AC. We were voted Best Food Truck for 2 years in a row, Best Oriental Cuisine and One of the Best Caterers by the people of Killeen. Our KTown Philly and Bulgogi Grilled Cheese became best sellers. Not too bad for someone who had never worked in the culinary field before. Everything was going well when the trailer was unexpectedly closed due to a bad partnership. I was just building up momentum as I slammed into a brick wall. What do I do now?
My prayers were answered when an old acquaintance contacted me about renting out a kitchen in his new bar. I took every dollar I had, about $5000, and sunk it into my new solo project, Akira’s Korean Fusion. It was all or nothing. All my chips were on the table and all my eggrolls were in 1 basket.
I’ve been very blessed to have done so well in the few months I’ve been open. It’s a learning experience bombarded by payroll, insurance, taxes and food costs. All things I have learned about in the last few months. We are still a very young business and I am still very wet behind the ears as an owner and head chef. I was raised on hard work and prayer and I plan on doing a lot of both to make this work. Word is getting around about the restaurant and we are getting very positive reviews and feedback. People truly love the food and rave about the customer service. If given the chance, I know we will be a culinary staple in our community.
Unfortunately, once again I have hit a wall right as I’m starting to spread my wings. Our landlord had the bank foreclose on the property the restaurant is on. The bank is allowing us and the bar to remain open…for now. Hopefully when it’s all said and done Whiskey Business and Akira’s Korean Fusion will still be open in the same spot for a long time. The equipment that we use belongs to our prior landlord. He is being nice enough to allow us to use it and stay in business but a decision has to be made soon, whether to purchase the equipment or purchase new equipment. The pieces we use now are old and we have rebuilt them and repaired them the best we can. Newer equipment will allow us to do so much more with brunch being the most outstanding. We need a gas range and oven to accomplish this. Whether we stay or move, we will need equipment to continue to operate.
This fund raiser is to raise money to get our kitchen equipped to pump out food and stay open. We are in need of a grill/oven combo, deep fryer and a lowboy prep station. I estimate it will run between $4-$5,000. Commercial equipment is very expensive, whether new or used. I am very aware that this is a large amount of money to raise. I have faith that we can accomplish it with your help. Any little bit counts and if you can’t help, please share our fund. Either way, we appreciate all of you. I know that none of this would be possible without our customers. We are so very grateful for you all.
Eat, Drink and be Happy
-Chef Akira McNeil
I decided to bring Korean Fusion to my home town of Killeen, Texas through the LaTaKorea food trailer. It was the next stage of my growing business. With the foundation I built with my delivery service, the trailer became very successful, very fast. I offered unique and extremely eye pleasing dishes with Korean twists that you couldn’t get anywhere else in our area. It was my first legitimate culinary business and I was learning something new everyday. I have no formal culinary or business training. I learned everything from books, the internet and the hard way, through trial and error. I can cook, I am good with people, extremely courteous and I’m a stickler for detail. This has turned out to be a winning formula. My team and I worked diligently for a year and a half in that scorching hot, little trailer with no AC. We were voted Best Food Truck for 2 years in a row, Best Oriental Cuisine and One of the Best Caterers by the people of Killeen. Our KTown Philly and Bulgogi Grilled Cheese became best sellers. Not too bad for someone who had never worked in the culinary field before. Everything was going well when the trailer was unexpectedly closed due to a bad partnership. I was just building up momentum as I slammed into a brick wall. What do I do now?
My prayers were answered when an old acquaintance contacted me about renting out a kitchen in his new bar. I took every dollar I had, about $5000, and sunk it into my new solo project, Akira’s Korean Fusion. It was all or nothing. All my chips were on the table and all my eggrolls were in 1 basket.
I’ve been very blessed to have done so well in the few months I’ve been open. It’s a learning experience bombarded by payroll, insurance, taxes and food costs. All things I have learned about in the last few months. We are still a very young business and I am still very wet behind the ears as an owner and head chef. I was raised on hard work and prayer and I plan on doing a lot of both to make this work. Word is getting around about the restaurant and we are getting very positive reviews and feedback. People truly love the food and rave about the customer service. If given the chance, I know we will be a culinary staple in our community.
Unfortunately, once again I have hit a wall right as I’m starting to spread my wings. Our landlord had the bank foreclose on the property the restaurant is on. The bank is allowing us and the bar to remain open…for now. Hopefully when it’s all said and done Whiskey Business and Akira’s Korean Fusion will still be open in the same spot for a long time. The equipment that we use belongs to our prior landlord. He is being nice enough to allow us to use it and stay in business but a decision has to be made soon, whether to purchase the equipment or purchase new equipment. The pieces we use now are old and we have rebuilt them and repaired them the best we can. Newer equipment will allow us to do so much more with brunch being the most outstanding. We need a gas range and oven to accomplish this. Whether we stay or move, we will need equipment to continue to operate.
This fund raiser is to raise money to get our kitchen equipped to pump out food and stay open. We are in need of a grill/oven combo, deep fryer and a lowboy prep station. I estimate it will run between $4-$5,000. Commercial equipment is very expensive, whether new or used. I am very aware that this is a large amount of money to raise. I have faith that we can accomplish it with your help. Any little bit counts and if you can’t help, please share our fund. Either way, we appreciate all of you. I know that none of this would be possible without our customers. We are so very grateful for you all.
Eat, Drink and be Happy
-Chef Akira McNeil
Organizer
Akira McNeil
Organizer
Killeen, TX
