Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

Ra­men has be­come a sta­ple for uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents not on­ly due to its flavour, but al­so its con­ve­nience and af­ford­abil­i­ty. That’s one of the rea­sons why a lo­cal fam­i­ly-run busi­ness is hop­ing to make cam­pus life a bit eas­i­er for stu­dents by bring­ing the ra­men and com­fort food ex­pe­ri­ence to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

Lo­cat­ed in UWI St Au­gus­tine’s food block, Av­enue 5055 is home to what own­ers say is the first au­to­mat­ed ra­men sta­tion in the Caribbean.

Own­er Paul Davis said his daugh­ter’s love for Ko­re­an cul­ture sparked the idea.

“A big in­spi­ra­tion was K-dra­mas, and see­ing the ra­men ma­chines there, as well as the street food. So, my wife, Nicole Moore, reached out to the sup­pli­er and built that rap­port with them, and they liked what we had to say,” he re­called.

Pop­u­lar in coun­tries like South Ko­rea and Japan, the au­to­mat­ic ma­chine is a one-touch food cook­er for in­stant ra­men and oth­er meals. Us­ing in­duc­tion heat­ing, it dis­pens­es the ex­act amount of wa­ter need­ed to cook a meal in around four min­utes. Spe­cial­ly de­signed dis­pos­able bowls are re­quired, as the wa­ter is al­so boiled from the bot­tom.

Cus­tomers can per­son­alise their ra­men with top­pings in­clud­ing chives, sea­weed and cheese, along with sides such as eggs, dumplings, shrimp and rice cakes. Shelves stocked with a va­ri­ety of ra­men brands and flavours give din­ers plen­ty of op­tions to choose from.

But apart from ra­men, Av­enue 5055 al­so serves Ko­re­an-in­spired toasties along­side oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al street food favourites.

“The toasties are sand­wich­es that we ac­tu­al­ly toast there. They are sand­wich­es you can go to In­dia, Ko­rea, and even Mex­i­co and you’ll find them. We al­so just added a rice op­tion; those are rice balls from Viet­nam. We take the rice, then we put meat, veg­gies and cheese, and more rice on top so it looks like a bowl. On the sweet side, we have a cin­na­mon bun, but it’s ac­tu­al­ly grilled,” Davis ex­plained.

He added that a Trinidad & To­ba­go-in­spired street food of­fer­ing is al­so in the works.

While one of the busi­ness’s goals was to of­fer food that is not eas­i­ly found on cam­pus, their main hope is to spread pos­i­tiv­i­ty.

“We came up with the con­cept of Av­enue 5055, the whole street vibe, but it’s not about the food or the sand­wich­es so much, it’s just the feel­ing. When you walk in, the whole look of the place, the way the staff treats you and the way the cus­tomers re­act,” he not­ed.

That phi­los­o­phy is ev­i­dent when cus­tomers step in­to the cosy nook. Staff mem­bers break out in song and dance to wel­come each new ar­rival. Davis said that en­er­gy is some­thing they try to main­tain at the shop. He shared that games such as All Fours, hop­scotch and even a karaoke ma­chine are made avail­able for cus­tomers, but it is most­ly there to boost the mood of the staff, some­thing he be­lieves will pass on ‘good vibes’ to the cus­tomers.

“It starts from the staff. They must feel com­fort­able, and en­joy them­selves. And when the cus­tomers walk in, they must feel that as well. When the guests leave, they’re not on­ly go­ing to come back for the ra­men or the toasties, but they have to come for the vibe and that feel­ing,” he said.

Since open­ing in April 2026, Davis said Av­enue 5055 has at­tract­ed a grow­ing mix of stu­dents, staff and vis­i­tors who dis­cov­ered the busi­ness on­line, with many re­turn­ing for both the food and the at­mos­phere.