Crowdfunding investment helps fan favorite food cart revive second-chance entrepreneur’s outlook

After spending a decade in prison, owning her own catering business has given Stephanie Blaco a new purpose in life, she shared, and a new small business crowdfunding platform is giving her the opportunity — when others wouldn’t — to scale up.

“That’s what I believe has kept me out of prison,” the Mixing Bowl On The Go owner said. 

Mixing Bowl On The Go food cart; photo courtesy of Stephanie Blaco

Blaco has been running the business for four years since she was released from incarceration.

“One of the biggest struggles that I had when I had been out of prison before was finding employment,” she said.

Another struggle has been finding funding, Blaco continued, that is until Kiva Kansas City — a crowdfunded microloan program  for entrepreneurs who have had difficulties securing traditional bank loans — gave her a chance to succeed. The program is a partnership between the international non-profit Kiva, the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s KC BizCare Office, and the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City (EDCKC).

[Editor’s note: Startland News is a partner of the KC BizCare Office and the EDCKC.]

Blaco already has worked with Determination, Incorporated, the Kansas City-based nonprofit empowering formerly incarcerated people to seize employment and entrepreneurial opportunity in service-based businesses, but still found difficulty overcoming her background, she said.

“I just told (Determination, Incorporated founder Kyle Benson-Smith), ‘if one person would just give me that one shot,’” Blaco said.

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Through the crowdfunding platform, Blaco was given a $4,000 zero-percent interest loan to upgrade her food cart. Determination, Incorporated is the trustee on her loan.

“It means a lot that they have some trust in me to be able to give me the chance to get some things done and show them that I can pay it back,” she said.

“I was kind of worried about what’s going to happen,” she added, “because I don’t really know that many people. But it happened. Kyle said, ‘Just have faith.’”

The loan from Kiva will help her to give the Mixing Bowl — known for its breakfast burritos, cinnamon rolls, and KC cheesesteak sandwiches (and as a previous winner of the KC Chamber’s Honeywell Fan Favorite awards in 2022  — new life, she said.

Blaco — who has a passion for cooking for others and giving back — plans to use the loan to upgrade and fix the food cart that she purchased several years ago, she said, noting additional permitting fees. She plans to take the cart to events across the city, plus set up on Thursdays and Fridays in Independence and feed those in need on Sundays.

Click here to follow the Mixing Bowl On The Go on Instagram for updates on locations and specials.

Stephanie Blaco, Mixing Bowl On The Go, with her father

“I like being mobile,” she noted. “I can take it anywhere. Having a brick-and-mortar restaurant, it’s a lot of overhead and a lot of extra. Doing it in a food cart, I don’t have to worry about all that.”

She knows first-hand what it’s like to run a fixed, physical space. When she was released from prison in 2020, she shared, her dad bought the Mixing Bowl — which has been around for 14 years and was located on Southwest Boulevard for eight years — from the previous owners. They ran the restaurant together for about two years, but she decided not to renew their lease on Southwest Boulevard after her father was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and they discovered issues with the building.

“My No. 1 priority was to make sure he’s OK,” she said. “He’s a huge support.”

After closing the space, Blaco was approached about catering an event, she continued. Soon more requests started coming in.

“Catering is just blowing up,” she added.