Today we’d like to introduce you to Enrique Palacios & Mingjian Dan.
Hi Enrique & Mingjia, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Everything has an origin story, and a story involves people. This story just so happened to involve me, for better or worse, this is a story about how I started a business with a friend. It all started with the pandemic last year, I graduated from film school at UT, and like everybody pursuing an art career, I ended up working at a restaurant called Look Noodles. Months passed, and I see myself moving further away from making a movie, with all the covid lockdowns happening, I had no hope of going back home to China, my roommate Enrique and I started talking about doing business together so we can get something going with our life. We were interested in renting a food truck and putting it in the Look Noodles parking lot because we see the opportunity in this place. Look Noodles is located on Guadalupe St, right in the heart of west campus, there are already a bunch of Asian restaurants and boba shops spawned around here.
During college, I always tried to look for a hang-out spot for the minorities in Austin, but there is none. After I pitched the idea to my boss, he told me f*ck the food truck, we can just take over the restaurant. We were overwhelmed, to a 23-year-old this is a big deal, plus I’ve got nothing better to do so we took the challenge. It is obviously a bigger challenge than we anticipated. The shop was mismanaged for a while, it had its glory six years ago when it was called Ramen Fukuya, then it changed to Look Noodles because of partnership change, now with us running it, we decided to change the name once again to fit with our vision. Since I can’t go back to home, we decided to call the shop South Cloud, an ambiguous translation of Yunnan, the province I am from. If I can’t go back, then I’ll bring home here.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It was definitely a bigger challenge than we anticipated. The competition on Guard is fierce, especially after the pandemic. Many local places have been closed down, leaving us to be one of the few places that are not a franchise on the Drag. With UT expanding its territory, as we saw what happened to Poke Bay and Wooten Barbershop, who knows the fate will be for our side of the street. We realized this is a war between the authentic Austin culture and gentrification. We want to stay true to keeping Austin weird by running the place with integrity and intimacy.
Nonetheless, The shop was mismanaged for a while, it had its glory six years ago when it was called Ramen Fukuya, then it changed to Look Noodles because of partnership reasons, now with us running it, we decided to change name once again to fit with our vision. Since I can’t go back home, we decided to call the shop South Cloud, an ambiguous translation of Yunnan, the province I am from. If I can’t go back, then I’ll bring it home here.
There were many challenges before us, the infrastructure of the building has been here for decades, so everything was pretty run down, everything was broken. The food was greasy and careless. The business was not running well. We had to make some changes. I barely knew anything about cooking before I started, so we took our time learning from the ground up. Eventually, with some help from friends, we managed to fix everything and changed the menu almost entirely; Lastly, we turned our old poke bar that was used for storage to a functional bar and had our dear friend slash aspiring chef Ari Diaz to create an amazing and thoughtful drink menu.
We’ve been impressed with SouthCloud Ramen & Bar, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We are just recent UT grads that are trying to leave their mark with the help of all of our friends. We are a strong force coming to Guadalupe St!
How do you think about luck?
We are really really lucky for the support circle we have. So many of our friends have helped us with what they specialize in. Examples are Eric Ji, who developed our website, he is not only is a friend of ours but a talented website developer. Rachel also goes by the name Spicy Gobou, who helped with the beautiful menu pictures. Our logo is designed by Micaela. Also, I want to give a special thanks to Danae, Hayle, Rebekah, Abbey, Hunter, Sony, Mounica for helping lay the foundation of the shop.
Contact Info:
- Website: southcloudramen.com
- Instagram: @southcloudramen
