GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Ramen with a reason.
One of Grand Rapids' newest restaurants was created with two goals in mind — serving unique, authentic food while fighting childhood hunger in the process.
Chris Wessely is the owner and executive chef at Noodlepig. He's also a self-proclaimed ramen addict.
"Everyone, I think, mostly knows (ramen) from the college years, right?" Wessely said. "Even though it's frozen packs of ramen. But in Japan, they take it — it's a craft. It's an art form. The way we do it, and we're trying to do it the right way, is that we we make all the noodles in-house. All of the bases we have in-house. We're picking really, really nice ingredients to use.”
There's a mission behind every meal at Noodlepig. For every bowl of ramen served, three hungry children are fed.
Wessely said it's a mission that found him.
“I have a buddy who's a brother from another mother, really, for me," he explained. "His name is Tom. He was adopted from India. I met when we were really young. So as adults, he decided to go back to India to go find his parents. He's from a very poor village in southern India. He remarkably found them. In doing so, then he also saw how like, you know, the village was just so poor.”
"The stories he was telling me were just terrible," he continued. "So he thought he'd do something nice for the village. He's like, 'Oh, wait. Let me see if I can build a meal and feed the village.' He did this. The village saw this and thought, 'Man, wow. This is this is great. Look at this hospitality.' So the next day, there were, like, I think two infants that were dropped off at his doorstep. They were born with AIDS and they were abandoned. So he's like, 'What do I do?' So he, of course, brings them in. The villagers see this. The next day, more kids are dropped off at his doorstep. Next thing you know, he's thrusted into this vocation of creating a children's home in India.”
"I thought that was really inspiring. In many ways, he's a much better human being than I am. So this time around, when I'm building Noodlepig, and going, 'Hey, you know, I want to bring some Japanese flavors to West Michigan. You know, this is checking off a bunch of boxes for me, culinary-wise, business-wise and all that.' I thought, 'Well, geez, if I'm in the business of feeding people, then why don't I find a way to help feed some of these kids?' So I reached out to Tom. I go, 'Hey, man, how much does it cost to feed one of your kids through your organization?' He gives me a number. I populate that into my budget. I'm like, 'Okay. I think I can make this work. Great.' But then as I started thinking, I'm like, 'You know, food insecurity is an issue in India. It's huge. But it's also a huge problem in the United States. One in five kids. It's a huge problem here, right here in Grand Rapids. It's down the street. It's an epidemic, and it's everywhere.' So I thought, 'Well, maybe could we do the same thing on the national and local level."
Noodlepig works with three different partners — Hand2Hand, No Kid Hungry and Faith in Deeds — to feed kids on the local, national and international levels.
The restaurant opened on Nov. 2, and in a month's time, they've been able to feed about 10,000 children. That second metric is how Wessely plans on measuring Noodlepig's success.
"I think of McDonald's," he said. "They advertise how many billions of burgers they've sold. It's interesting that they're, like, that's the metric they want to share with the community to be like, 'Hey, look. Were popular.' For us, I thought, a more powerful metric would be how many kids we've impacted today (and) in the lifetime of us being open.”
Noodlepig is located at 601 Bond Ave. NW, STE 102.