We were lucky to catch up with Ezra Lopez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ezra, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Being a Teppanyaki Chef for 9 years at the time. My wife and I were starting to look at owning and operating our own business together. With the experience we gained from working in the restaurant industry together, we decided to start catering privately.

Most of our brain storming came from when we would walk our dog after long hours at the restaurant. We came up with the name SHIFUKU because it translates to bliss and prosperity. We wanted to offer a blissful experience to all our friends that have us come and cook for them.

Ezra, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was introduced to the restaurant industry when I was 15 years old. I got my first job as a cashier/cook at a burger joint in Downtown Provo, Utah called Rocky Mountain Drive-Inn. A year later I got a job as a server at a Teppanyaki restaurant called Kyoto Japanese Steak House and Sushi bar, located in Provo, Utah as well. 6 months into serving the owner offered to train me to become a Teppanyaki Cook. I was a senior in high school when I was fully trained and cooking for customers. My wife and I met at Kyoto 3 years later when she was hired as a server.

We started catering in December 2020, during the pandemic. I lost my job at the restaurant for 3 months because of Covid-19. Thats when my wife and I started thinking about starting a teppanyaki catering business.

We offer a unique experience to our clients, bringing a fully operational teppanyaki restaurant to your location of choice. If you’re hosting a birthday, anniversary, bachelorette party, etc. We will work with you to provide an unforgettable experience.

When setting up an event, there is so much stress about finding rentals for chairs, decor, food, heating, entertainment and canopies for shade etc. We wanted to take all that stress away from our clients, so their only worry is to show up with friends and have fun. This is what sets us apart from other catering companies.

We are most proud about the memories we are able to create and provide for each party that has hired and trusted us to host for them. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback and have grown pretty well this past two and half years of being in business. We want our clients and followers to know, we are not able to push forward without the support and love we receive from our community. We are so focused on always providing the best experience possible and want everyone to feel that they receive more than what they thought they would.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Catering definitely started as a side hustle, It has turned into a fulltime career for me. We started in the middle of winter in 2020. It started as word of mouth to promote. We got hired by a few friends of ours through conversations, as well as a few families that I cooked for and built relationships with while I was still working at restaurants. Our first year in business we catered about 20 events and the next year we tripled our events and revenue. Social media started to play a big part in us getting hired as our accounts grew and are continuing to grow.

One of the milestones was being able to quit my job and focus solely on growing our company. When our company started to make my monthly income in profit it was a huge steppingstone that gave us confidence to take the risk.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

To save and fund out business, my wife and I took on a lot of odd jobs as well as having our fulltime jobs.

I was cooking fulltime, and my wife was a manger fulltime. We took on cleaning restaurant kitchen hoods, cleanign apartment lobbies, and serving on the side, just to earn more and save every penny we could. For about a year we were both working 3 jobs including catering, to keep pushing forward and being able to afford the loss we were taking on buying equipment and being able to afford rent. We sold our car we had payments on and were carless for two months to save and buy a truck that could tow our trailer.

Contact Info:

• Website: teppashifuku.com
• Instagram: @shifuku_ut
• Facebook: Shifuku_Ut
• Linkedin: Shifuku
• Other: Google: Shifuku Teppanyaki