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Kawaii Konbini Brings Japanese Gifts, Snacks and Food to Longmont

"We'd love to see Kawaii Konbini become a community staple for quick, affordable, unique, healthy and honest food."
Image: rice balls and sandwich
Onigiri rice balls (katsuobushi bonito fish flakes, natto fermented soy beans and tuna and mayo) and a classic Japanese egg salad sando from Kawaii Konbini. Gil Asakawa

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Convenience stores, a very American concept for people on the go, were first introduced in Japan in the 1970s. Today, they're an intrinsic part of life throughout the country — even more so than in the U.S. — as well as a social, economic and even culinary hub of modern Japan. And they're called konbini, because Japanese love taking foreign words and shortening them.

In the summer of 2023, a temporary Denver version of a konbini was opened by a photographer who fell in love with Japanese convenience stores as an immersive exhibit for a few months.

In Longmont, a more permanent shop, Kawaii Konbini ("kawaii" means "cute"), has been operating since the same summer, a spinoff of a food truck started by Brooks Steele and April Bliss, a husband-and-wife team who met in Maryland but whose souls seem rooted in Japan. They launched the food truck and catering company in 2020 and immediately faced serious challenges.

"We first opened our food truck, Gaijin Street Food, on March 1 of 2020. Difficult timing," Steele understates. 'Nuff said: COVID shut the country down two weeks later. But the couple persevered for two more years. "We were focused primarily on, but not limited to, onigiri (rice balls) and our other favorite Japanese comfort foods," Steele recalls.

When they finally parked the truck in December 2022, they decided to bring a more permanent taste of Japan to Longmont. "I knew that I still wanted to make onigiri for our community, who had become wonderful customers and friends," Steele says, "but I really needed a homebase."

The couple's first homebase for Kawaii Konbini was a shop inside the Old Town Marketplace in 2023. "During our time there we built a very loyal following of incredibly gracious regulars," Steele recalls. "Thanks to them, and the strong community of vendors and merchants in the marketplace, through collaborations and copromotions, we began building towards something bigger."

The second version of Kawaii Konbini was a popup at the St. Vrain Cidery in late 2024, where they sold onigiri and some popular items from the food truck, as well as additions like soup, curries and beef bowls.

Steele and Bliss finally landed their permanent home last month in a strip mall in south Longmont, just off the highly-trafficked intersection of Main Street and the Longmont Diagonal. The new address has a larger selection of Japanese groceries; snacks (Japanese chips and rice crackers); a cooler that the couple keeps stocked with assorted sides, snacks, sandos (Japanese for sandwiches) and noodles; and a kitchen with a perfect counter space to make onigiri.
click to enlarge hello dolly noren at Kawaii Konbini
The entrance to Kawaii Konbini has a Hello Dolly noren, or traditional shop curtain, in the doorway.
Gil Asakawa
Brooks works behind the counter, hand-crafting a generous ball of rice into a mold and filling it with various ingredients from the typical and familiar (tuna fish and mayo, like a tuna salad sandwich rolled into rice and wrapped with nori seaweed, or umeboshi, the traditional salted Japanese plum) and the more esoteric (natto, fermented soybeans that even many Japanese Americans don't care for). Meanwhile, Bliss handles the front-of-house with her friendly and outgoing personality.

"I became enamored with cooking at an early age," Steele says. "I was raised by my mother, grandmother, and two great aunts, all fantastic cooks and wonderful women. It was really instilled in me at a young age that if you care about someone, you feed them."

He ended up studying music education (he has a "day job" as a music teacher and photographer when he's not at the shop) but became a sous chef at a Baltimore restaurant. "I loved it. Every second of the stress, every degree of the heat, every twinge of pain in all the burns on my arms," he recalls.

Steele always loved Japanese culture and food from afar, growing up entranced by anime and video games. Bliss became obsessed when she took an intro to Japanese course. "I found myself falling in love with the complexity and rhythm of the language," she says. "By fall of my junior year — 2008 — I was on my first trip abroad, studying at Kansai Gaidai University near Hirakata, Japan." That experience awakened her Japanese soul.

She met Steele three years later, and the couple eventually moved to Colorado, starting their food truck and now their shope.

While Bliss, too, has a day job as manager of the dining facilities of an independent living community in Boulder, the couple's ultimate goal is to make their shop a full-time business.
click to enlarge Kawaii Konbini
Knick knacks from customers decorate the counter.
Gil Asakawa
"We'd love to see Kawaii Konbini become a community staple for quick, affordable, unique, healthy and honest food that is accessible, comfortable and welcoming for everyone," Steele says. "Eventually, we'd love to convert the rooms in the back of our shop to provide some sort of entertainment (Japanese-focused, of course) on the weekends. We also have plans to apply for a liquor license so we can curate a small sake selection. If we're dreaming big, we'd like to open something else in the future!"

The two have been to Japan three times together, and they hope to return soon. Steele remembers everything he ate the first time he traveled there in 2016, but especially the onigiri, something that is starting to catch on big in the States (and in the Denver area). "I had onigiri and yes, from a konbini, but I knew at that moment I wanted to eat them forever," he recalls. "We spent two weeks in Kansai and I ate an onigiri everyday."

They're determined to bring the taste and traditions of Japan to Longmont. "What struck me about food in Japan is that it was affordable," he notes. "Even the good stuff, the honest and nutritious food, was affordable, like it should be. And I knew I wanted to bring that back to my cooking here in Longmont.

"The people, the public transportation, the vending machines, the cleanliness, the architecture, the food, the entertainment. All of it was everything I had hoped it would be."

Kawaii Konbini is located at 195 South Main Street #9 in Longmont, and is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. For more information, visit instagram.com/_kawaiikonbini.