Going All in on Full Send Ramen

How one bite set a chef's dream in motion

By Karl Klockars | June 8, 2024

Ask Daniel Mabie about the first bowl of ramen he ever had, and you get an answer that takes you on a journey halfway around the world, from California to Hawaii, and about how the power of a bowl of soup can yank you out of teenage angst and remind you that life can be worth living.

Given that Daniel and his wife, Holly, are the proprietors of Full Send Ramen—a food truck focused on Japan-by-way-of-Maui ramen noodles, plus other Pacific island specialties like pork belly bao, spam musubi, and fresh tuna poke—this answer makes a lot of sense.

A Ramen Reawakening

You don’t get into the ramen life without a transformative ramen experience, and Daniel’s came during a trip to “a little spot called Restaurant Matsu, a little hole in the wall in Maui,” as he describes it.

Daniel’s family moved to Hawaii while he was in high school. “I didn’t have a choice because I was with family, of course … [but] I was not happy with the decision at all. I was around 16, and all my friends were in California. … I was pretty depressed for a while.”

That’s when a new friend took him out for lunch, where he ordered a bowl of shoyu ramen.

“It definitely made a lasting impression. It was like, ‘What is this? What is this taste?’ I loved the broth, I loved the chashu, I was all in on the pork belly. After that first bowl, I was just trying to recreate that feeling. That was one of the best moments of me being there. It was the first time I was feeling like, oh, wow … life is good.”

Daniel can also thank Maui for bringing his wife Holly, a Traverse City native, into his orbit as well. “We actually met working at the same little cafe on the North Shore together … I was crushing on her while learning about food; we met there, started dating, and the rest is history.”

Now they work just a few feet apart from each other most days, which Holly describes as “putting all our eggs into this basket,” but the close proximity is working out. “My parents worked together when I was growing up,” she says when asked about working in a confined space with your spouse. “It doesn’t feel super weird to work with him because that’s what I was always around.”

110 Percent

The duo returned to northern Michigan about three years ago, where Daniel found work at Providence Organic Farm in Central Lake running their cafe.

“It was very inspirational,” Daniel says. “The workers would come in, washing greens, different produce. They’d pack it, process it, and it gets shoved in the walk-in [cooler] and they’d be like, ‘Here you go—make some stuff.’ So it was a chef’s dream.”

But even amongst the kale, carrots, potatoes, and strawberries, the pull of ramen was still irresistible. Daniel and Holly arranged some events which proved the appetite for ramen was there. “It’s hard to screw up making a delicious bowl of ramen when you use local bones and produce and when farmers are putting so much intention into that side of it, you know?” Daniel says.

And so Full Send Ramen got its start. The name itself comes from Daniel’s time growing up in California. “It was usually just a fun phrase of just, whether it was surfing or whatever, just going in 110 percent. So that’s our little intention. We used it in some different food things we did in the past; we had a little baby granola business called Full Send, and we thought, let’s keep the trend going. We want to go in 110 percent, God’s glory alone, and figure it out.”

The Full Send experience has run the gamut of operational styles, from farm-based popups to a residency at The Little Fleet. They now operate from their truck outside The Coin Slot, which is where everything from roasted pork belly chashu to multiple types of savory, steaming broth is prepped and served five days a week from 11am until it’s all gone.

The Local Touch

Working with local farms whenever possible is a major priority at the eatery, so much so that a handwritten list of the farms they source product from is posted next to the menu, thanking providers like Anavery Fine Foods, Sunrise Acres, Up North Heritage Farm, and Lakeview Hill.

Ramen made with a full send of Michigan produce may sound antithetical to a menu focused on Japanese foods, but that’s part of what makes Full Send what it is.

“I think the important thing to realize as a chef and just as a human being, is that if you’re going to be local and organic, you’re going to have to deal with inconsistencies. I love them, because it means it’s real,” Daniel says.

Local pork bones and stewing hens from farms just a few miles away get simmered for hours, local aromatics and vegetables add to the seasoning, and local mushrooms add to the umami richness.

Their ramen still requires traditional ingredients like bonito flakes, soy sauce, and nori sheets, so don’t worry—your shoyu and tonkotsu bowls will still satisfy those flavor cravings. Even if the menu adds a little Hawaiian kick to things, the ramen is still treated with plenty of respect for tradition.

“We’ve taken the philosophy of how ramen was first created in Japan, of using what’s around you and … the mantra of zero waste. That’s absolutely what we do. It’s about using what you have and making something beautiful but humble at the same time,” Daniel explains.

If a steamy bowl of soup doesn’t sound like what you need on a hot summer day, don’t sleep on the poke if you see it on the menu: Fresh raw ahi tuna, lightly seasoned, served over rice. Local providers for wild-caught tuna aren’t exactly doable in this part of the world, so theirs is provided by a friend on the Big Island, Daniel explains.

“They catch it, they fly it in that night, it’s cut at 3am, it’s on the five o’clock truck from Grand Rapids and delivered the next day. The fish that I served yesterday was swimming 24 hours ago. That’s just crazy. Sure, it’s not our money maker, but it’s worth having just to give people the experience.”

Past and Future

That authenticity extends to their work on the truck. When asked if they ever consider the possibility of a brick-and-mortar space, it sounds like it’s not the first time that question has been broached.

“I can say I never expected so many people to ask me that question doing this,” Daniel says. “Honestly, even on a spiritual level, we feel like God provided that trailer and the way everything’s worked out. Little things that have added up in very interesting ways. We feel like contentedness is where we want to set our minds.”

Holly adds, “On Maui, there’s a bunch of food trucks, and it’s no one’s dream to expand from there. That’s where our minds were.”

As we wrap up our conversation about life, ramen, and everything else, Daniel is getting ready to jump back onto the truck for another afternoon’s service. A final question about where he sources his noodles from, revealed one last special twist. He uses Sun Noodles (founded in Hawaii, naturally), and mentioned that when you use their noodles, you can choose the thickness, the cut and other variables for your preferred bite of ramen.

On his last trip back to Hawaii, he returned to that Maui ramen shop that kick-started his affection many years ago. The noodles they used there? Turns out they were the exact same ones.

Find Full Send Ramen outside of The Coin Slot Lot at 346 E Front St. in Traverse City. fullsendramen.com