Taste of the Town: Noodle Station in Fort Lauderdale
FORT LAUDERDALE - The Noodle Station located off Oakland Park Boulevard and Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale was chosen to participate in this year's Black Pepper Food & Wine Festival on Saturday at The Urban in Overtown.
The fast-casual restaurant is an Asian - African American 'build your own bowl' concept. Its owner, Chef Walter Harris, who opened it three and a half years ago, said the idea came to him after spending time in Japan.
"I figured how can I bring something like that back here and put my own, my own spin and do it," Harris said. "So, I put two and two together and came up with what we have now."
What he has is a home-grown success story that's even expanding to Las Vegas. He said the support of the local community has been amazing and now during Black Business Month there's even more exposure.
"The response from the local community and even the local black community, people come in and they're like, 'wow, this is something different', because it's been referred to as 'Asian soul food' on several occasions, " Harris said.
Alexis Brown is co-founder of the Black Pepper Food & Wine Festival, which features 35 Black-owned restaurants this year.
"Noodle Station is an awesome representation of the diversity offerings that Black businesses have to offer, " Brown said. " We founded this festival in 2019. And over time, we decided to align it with Black Business Month which has been really great."