Artisan Foods: The Five Vendors Filling Blue Mountain Station

Big Kahuna LTD

What started as a challenge from his son turned into a local topping phenomenon for Walla Wal- la's Mike Rose.

Rose's son challenged him to make hot sauce 13 years ago, and after ventur- ing through farmer's mar- kets, sales with local res- taurants and even branching out to other sauces, Rose has decided to make the move into Blue Mountain Station.

Rose said he has always been the "Big Kahuna," dubbed such after wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts into the office every day. The nickname stuck so well, Rose decided his next busi- ness venture would bear the tropical-themed title.

Rose makes hot sauces with jalapenos and recently with ghost peppers. He also makes barbecue sauce and even tried his hand at a chocolate sauce.

When Rose heard about the opportunity to join Blue Mountain Station, he said he jumped for it, seeing an opportunity to expand his brand and keep doing what he loved - making hot sauce.

Now that he will be ven- turing into the new station with the community kitchen, Rose said he has a lot of opportunities to venture out and try new recipes and make Big Kahuna hot sauce a household name.

"We'll see where we go from there," Rose said.

Rose also said he hopes to create a few jobs with the new Dayton location de- pending on how successful the business is.