This is an excerpt from a conversation between Source Weekly food editor Donna Britt and James Gage, founder of Kita Café. You can hear the entire conversation in the Source Weekly’s Bend Don’t Break: Kita Café podcast.
Source Weekly: That’s some awesome merch you’re wearing, James. You have your Kita Café T- shirt and cap on.
James Gage: Yeah, I’m a walking billboard! You kind of have to be when you’re a tiny business like me to make sure people know about you.
SW: You’re not a brick and mortar. You’re doing just wholesale right now, so people can get your food at several outlets around town, which we’ll talk about in a second. But first, what is Kita Café?
JG: Kita is the name, and you see the dog on the logo, with the two-colored eyes, one brown and one blue. She was one of the three Huskies that my family had. She lived to be 16 years old. She recently passed this year. She meant a lot to my family and since Kita means north in Japanese, it just kind of worked out with what I was already planning on doing. So the name is a tribute to her.
SW: You make Japanese sandwiches, snacks, noodles, rice. Describe it, please.
JG: It’s convenience food, like what you would see at a Japanese 7-11. Everything is cold-held and grab-and-go. It’s like comfort food.
SW: Did you grow up eating Japanese food?
JG: I took three years of Japanese in college. I fell in love with the culture. The plan was to go to school there; I was accepted to a school there. But roadblocks along the way made it so that it didn’t happen, but it was something that was always a part of me. It took a while before I realized that’s what I wanted to do.
SW: So let’s talk about all of the different things that you’re offering. Starting with this beautiful strawberry sandwich I’m about to take a bite of. It’s full of some kind of cream and it has these beautiful, sliced strawberries on it.
JG: It’s different for sure. But when I tell people, well, you’ve had strawberry shortcake, everyone’s happy.
SW: Tell me about this Japanese milk bread. It’s really soft and fluffy. You bake it yourself?
JG: Yes and never, never was (baking) a part of my repertoire. I have full respect for bakers now in general.
SW: Your food is so pretty.
JG: A big part of all of this food is the cross section. People eat with their eyes. So you’re looking at it, and you can see what it is. And that was a big part of this wholesale journey and doing this. I wanted people to be able to look at it and go, I might want to try that because it looks good. It’s an open-face sandwich that’s cut and basically is like an open book for you. We do all kinds of sandwiches from the strawberry to mandarin orange, fig, Japanese egg salad, tofu, chicken katsu and tonkatsu, which is pork.
SW: You also do these lovely cold noodles with veggies and sauce.
JG: So there are tons of different wheat noodles in Japan, like ramen. And you’ve probably had yakisoba and udon. But the somen are ones that the Japanese eat when it’s hot out. The broth is cold, savory, salty. I think it looks pretty with the carrot, cabbage, green onion and it has Furikaki seasoning with sesame and seaweed.
SW: I found out about you through the grapevine; people are raving about your food.
JG: I gotta give it to this community. Everyone here has just been nothing but supportive. I think you can do anything here because people will help you. I just try to practice gratitude, humility, and if people like it, hey, that’s great.
SW: You are doing this all by yourself … from baking bread to posting on Instagram. It seems like a lot.
JG: You know, that’s the name of the game. I think people romanticize the industry a lot. But working for yourself is not all sunshine and daisies. I’ve seen this thing online that says something like I got tired of my 9 to 5 so I started working for myself and now I work 24/7! But I’m just gonna do what I can, and continue to do it. Just the fact that people give us a chance and they have nothing but good things to say, I think that’s great. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
—Find Kita Café foods at Sebastian’s Seafood & Specialty Market in Northwest Crossing, the Bendite Market on SW Century Drive, the Pantry on NW Newport Avenue and at Wild Petals Provisions in Brooks Alley downtown. Find the Bend Don’t Break podcast at the podcasts tab of bendsource.com.
This article appears in Source Weekly October 12, 2023.
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