A new restaurant in Rexburg just opened that gives people a taste of Japan.
Banzai Ramen held its first grand opening last Wednesday, and it went better than General Manager Kjell Jones expected.
“Oh, that day was crazy,” Jones said. “The line just never ended. It was very long, all day until we ran out of food, by around 6 o’clock. So, we realized we were not ready to meet that demand. So, we ended up closing for the rest of the week and then, making some changes in the kitchen so that we can produce more.”
Jones is a BYU-Idaho alumna who majored in business management and marketing. When his friend approached him with the idea to open a Japanese restaurant, he said he was all in.
“His idea was something similar to what we have today, and it got me really excited,” Jones said. “I mean, I'm just like everyone else. I'm a poor college student. So, to have the opportunity to jump into entrepreneurship without throwing in a bunch of funds that I didn't have, was an exciting opportunity for me.”
Banzai Ramen, Jones said, is a place where people can come and hangout and enjoy the Japanese culture with TVs that are constantly playing popular anime shows and a Nintendo Switch that is open to all customers.
“We have a Switch here with a bunch of controllers,” Jones said. “So, we're just trying to make this a fun place to be, and we'll make some adjustments as we go, as we see kind of how the business runs.”
At last week’s grand opening, Banzai Ramen received an unexpected number of customers, cutting their grand opening short. Today, they held another grand opening for the public.
“We kind of felt bad that we couldn't have our grand opening for the full day,” Jones said. “So, because of that, we wanted a second grand opening. And we're offering 25 bowls and 25 drinks for free randomly. We want to make sure that our fans and people can see that we're trying our best to give good service and have a good grand opening, even if we couldn't do it right necessarily the first time.”
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