LENEXA, Kan. - The Lenexa Public Markethas now been open for one month and business has been booming thanks to one hot tamale.
"It's been wildly popular," Carmen Chopp, Lenexa Public Market manager, said.
Every week, you’ll find a long line at the Lenexa Public Market filled with people eagerly waiting to get their hands on one.
"She has sold out every time," Chopp said.
Customers say it’s worth the wait on "Tamale Tuesday’s," and they don’t leave without first cleaning their plates.
"The tamales are good. Yes, make more," Michele Thompson, a customer, said.
Alejandra De La Fuente owns Red Kitchen Tamales. Before opening her business at the market, she was selling tamales online.
"This was someone who had been making them and selling them to friends on Facebook and things like that and decided to take a risk," Chopp said.
That risk paying off, as business has been booming.
"It's been so good, I quit my job," De La Fuente said.
De La Fuente said watching people enjoy her food is what makes her happy day in and day out.
"My dream was to have like a restaurant and serve food. Cooking is my thing," she said.
Red Kitchen Tamales isn’t the only restaurant inside the Lenexa Public Market that's cooking up creations.
"I'm excited for the restaurants to come in here, give us different choices," Thompson said.
Topp’d Pizza and Salads is also dishing up delicious food. Another new restaurant, Chewology, is finishing up inspections and set to open up next week.
"It's changing, it's dynamic, it's evolutionary, it isn't, I hope, ever going to be static like a food court," Chopp said.
Thanks to the number of choices coming to the Lenexa Public Market, it doesn’t seem like the lines will be winding down anytime soon.
Serene’s Bakery is the next business set to open at the Lenexa Public Market on Oct. 7.
