Filipino

A popular Filipino pop-up business now has a food trailer.

Kuya Bear Food made its debut in December 2021 as a a pop-up with Joe Olson selling his mother's lumpias (fried spring rolls) and other Filipino favorites.

Joe Olson and Sofia Domenech cook Filipino food specialties in the Kuya Bear Food trailer.

Over the next two years, Kuya Bear became a familiar and popular food business, popping up at such places as West Salem Public House, Fair Witness and Hoots Beer Co.

For Olson, it's been a journey that has taken its twists and turns but gradually led him to take the next step by investing in a food trailer.

Rangoon rolls from the Kuya Bear food trailer feature cream cheese, crab, green onion and sauces fried in rice wrapper and served with chili sauce.

Olson, 28, is a teacher and coach at Meadowlark Middle School and a soccer coach at Reynolds High School. And he's not ready to give up his day job yet, but with the outfitting of the trailer and the school summer vacation ready to start, Kuya Bear is ramping up its business in Winston-Salem.

KuyaBear has 18 gigs lined up for June. "And July is even crazier," Olson said.

Olson still seems to be trying to understand how he got here.

Pork and chicken skewers from Kuya Bear Foods.

It all started back in Dubuque, Iowa, where Olson grew up with a Filipino mother and American father.

"Back home in Dubuque, the farmers market is a really big community thing," he said. "My aunt was always telling my mom you need to sell your lumpia at the farmers market. That always stuck in the back of my mind."

He said that the Dubuque area had a small but active Filipino community. "I got to experience going to Filipino parties and everything that went with that — and eating all the food."

He has loved to cook almost as long as he remembers.

"When I was in fifth grade my parents would let me stay up on weekends and use the stove at 3 in the morning," he said with a laugh.

As a young adult, he gorged on the Food Network. "I loved Alton Brown. I would fall asleep to the Food Network," he said.

More recently, he has become enamored with YouTube cook Adam Ragusea.

The Kuya Bear Food trailer is set up outside West Salem Public House.

The idea for a food business grew gradually. It started with Olson's mother giving him her recipe for lumpia, which led to him making lumpia for friends.

Then a friend of his had a hot-dog cart at Krankies one time, which sparked his interest in a mobile food business.

When SaySo Coffee had a vendor market in 2021 at West Salem Public House, he asked if he could sell some lumpia there. He ended up making them for the after party. "I had a table, a camping stove and a pot. People still bought stuff even though they had to wait a long time. I was psyched."

He officially launched Kuya Bear Food pop-up business in December 2021 with two appearances at Monstercade.

The name comes from the Filipino word for big brother, kuya, which is what Olson was called around the house growing up. And "bear" is a nickname used by his mother-in-law.

As the pop-ups expanded, so did the menu. Olson started playing around with different kinds of rolls, such as his mac ‘n’ cheese roll. He also came up with rangoon rolls, with crab and cream cheese, and ube rolls, made with a Southeast Asian purple yam.

But as recently as April, Kuya Bear was doing only rolls — in other words, all kinds of variations on lumpia.

Now, the menu includes pancit, or rice noodles stir-fried with carrots, cabbage and onions. Olson makes BBQ skewers with chicken or pork marinated and glazed with a Filipino BBQ sauce. He also is selling chicken adobo, a classic Filipino dish of marinated chicken thigh cooked in a soy-vinegar sauce and served with garlic fried rice.

"Most of the things I make are versions of stuff my mom would make. But I make them to my liking," Olson said, adding that he tends to use less fat than his mother.

Lumpia from Kuya Bear Food features ground beef/chicken, green onion, garlic carrots and sauces fried in rice wrapper and served with sweet chili sauce.

Most of the foods, with the possible exception of chicken adobo, are sold in snack portions. The adobo sells for $11 and the pancit for $8. The rolls are $6 for five, and the skewers are $6 for three small ones.

Olson had his grand opening for his food trailer June 3 at West Salem Public House — the same place where he started with just a table, camp stove and a pot. Just minutes after opening at 5 p.m., there was a line down the street.

Veggie pancit from Kuya Bear Food features rice noodles cooked in sauce with sauteed carrots, onions and cabbage.

For about a year now, Olson has employed one of his soccer players, 18-year-old Sofia Domenech — who he said is half Filipino — to work on the truck. "At this point, she is the other half of the brand," he said.

Olson said he has no plans to give up his day job. "I still have a passion for education," he said, and he just finished graduate school online in school counseling.

But with the school year coming to an end and his spanking-new food trailer, Olson has a full schedule for Kuya Bear Food for June and July.

"My wife is always saying, ‘You should start a restaurant.’ But I feel weird when people call me chef. Right now, I just want this to be my part-time summer job — something I do for fun," he said.

Chicken Adobo from Kuya Bear Food features a chicken thigh marinated and cooked in adobo sauce, onions and bay leaf and served with garlic fried rice and sarap sauce.

"If you asked me five years ago, if I would ever have a food truck, I never would have thought that to be a possibility. I still park the trailer outside my house. I look out there, and I go, ‘Wow, I own a full-size kitchen on wheels.’"

Ube rolls from Kuya Bear Food feature sweet ube jam fried in rice wrapper and served with ube glaze.

[email protected]

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@mhastingswsj

Facebook and Instagram: @kuyabearfood

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