Support Abeshi Ghanaian Cuisine for 2022

Hi, my name is Renae and I am fundraising for Abeshi Ghanaian Cuisine.

Food Truck owner Tacitus Nana-Yabani’s grandmother meant everything to him. He lost his mother at a young age and was raised by his grandparents. His grandmother was a very smart business woman and used her skills in cooking and crafting to travel from country to country in Africa trading her wears to provide for her family. She loved to cook and shared that passion with Tacitus.

Tacitus’ opportunity that helped him discover his culinary skills came when he had an opportunity with a local music studio in Ghana. He was asked if he would coordinate the food for an event and started planning by bringing food in from others and eventually thought to himself “I know how to cook, I should be creating the food for this” and so he did. He came to America in 2014 and a mission of creating a family business in food. He got to work right away and took at opportunity to chef at the Muskegon Farmers Market Tasting Station and showcased his talent along with recipes from his native country of Ghana. He worked out of Kitchen 242, the commercial kitchen at the Muskegon Farmers Market until he was able to pull the funds together to purchase a food truck. Winning a Start Garden’s 5x5 competition in 2018 gave him the jumpstart that he needed. He serves West African inspired dishes from his food truck, Abeshi Ghanaian Cuisine.

For those of you who know Tacitus and have seen him in action, you know how hard he works. He juggles the demands of his business and being a single dad and raising his son (7 years of age) and his daughter (3 years of age) who are also very much into enjoying their father’s cooking and learning from him how to cook. Tacitus also became a U.S. Citizen in 2020.

The past two years have been very difficult for all small businesses but especially those that are seasonal like food trucks. Food Trucks in general need to be able to do enough business in a few short months in Michigan to carry them year-round financially. COVID really brought things to a halt in the summer of 2020 and were a little better in 2021 but still a struggle. In March of each year all food establishments need to renew their annual food license which not only comes with the cost of license renewal but also inspection costs, business insurance, business licensing (separate from a food license). Also if you want to apply to get into any festivals as a food vendor applications start early in the year and there is typically an application fee with the required fees once you are accepted. These fees range anywhere from $350 to $2000 or more. Start up costs each year can add up quickly and you must put all of that money upfront before you ever know how much money you might make and just hope that you will make money by participating. And did you know that if you travel around to other counties in Michigan (or anywhere) that you also need to pay a fee to the local health department in that county to be able to serve food even though you carry a food license through your county where you are based? Then of course you have the costs of ingredients and packaging to serve the food in, all of those costs have gone way up in the past couple of years. All of this makes it so hard to thrive in a food business.

Tacitus is trying so hard to keep his business going and eventually would love to have a brick and mortar restaurant that would be year-round. I’m asking that if you possibly can make any kind of donation to help him get started in 2022. There are several great festivals that he has his eye on to participate and needs help funding those fees as well as covering the costs of ingredients until he can start to generate some revenue. We have applied for some grants that we hope will come through as well. Please invest in Tacitus and his children.