50-year-olds, Ennis and Naoko Hooker, co-owners of Hooker’s Fusion, said they decided to start selling food in 2016 because they caught “the entrepreneurial bug.” 

Ennis Hooker is a retired military veteran with some experience in catering for the military and bartending expertise. His wife, Naoko is a certified Japanese chef. After Ennis retired from the military, the couple decided to start selling Ennis’s old military clothes, seeing how it was in demand on Guam, then later progressed to selling things in their house. 

By May 2016, Naoko decided to start selling food. “I miss Japanese food and I want to eat Japanese food,” said Naoko, who originates from Japan, “But everywhere is expensive.” Ennis and Naoko started up their food truck, where they can serve quality food at an affordable price. Little did they know about the obstacles they would have to face. “We didn’t anticipate the time limit for preparing certain food and regulations,” Ennis said. 

They soon discovered through trial and error at the Mangilao Night Market which is held every Thursday night, that there is 10 times more regulations for food trucks and canteen items than clothes. Through close observation, they noticed people craved Japanese food. Naoko said that they first started with Yakisoba because, “The people look for art and show with fresh ingredients, almost like teppan style”. Ennis said that wasn’t the only thing they wanted to provide for the people of Guam. They have four principles: Convenience, Price, Quality of Food, and Freshness. This attracted customers like Franz Meno, whom states, “I absolutely love bacon rice on a stick, the mixing of the sweetness of the sauce and the saltiness of the bacon make the experience unbelievable” and for other customers “MY GO-TO PLACE FOR POKE” Anne said.

The reasoning behind their principles originated from the Japanese philosophy ‘Omotenashi’ meaning “one single meeting make it the best that you can,” which is the same concept as first impressions.

 With this philosophy in mind, they plan to expand their delivery service in the future, where students and people can simply call or text their order and ask for it to be delivered to their location. They also plan to provide more catering services and bring some “Soul Food” to the people of Guam.