Street Grindz founder Poni Askew wants someone, anyone, to launch a musubi food truck.

Not one of the 250 vendors in the Street Grindz network, Askew said, is devoted to the rice balls (or rectangles) with a savory surprise inside.

“I put it out there so many times,” Askew said. “I do these workshops for the community colleges for career days. I always say we all want to be a taco vendor. (But) We’ve had our own version of tacos in Hawaii for a really long time. We call them musubis. Nobody is a musubi vendor.”

Askew holds out hope that some innovative foodie will roll out musubis on the waterfront in Kakaako, preferably in a food tent or truck at Makers & Tasters, which is Street Grindz’ latest venture.

The outdoor venue where the old Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant once stood is envisioned to eventually have seating for 180 people, adult beverages, misters to cool people and 15 food trucks at any given time between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m on a daily basis.

It will also be the spot for Eat the Street, the once-a-month food truck extravaganzas that Street Grindz has organized for the past five years.

Makers & Tasters is the first time Street Grindz has moved into the daily grind. It signed a 3 1/2-year lease with the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) and started business on Saturday.

“For us, we’ve learned it means daily means daily. We’re here everyday,” Askew said. “It’s like opening up your own restaurant, so there’s some learning curves operationally as a company.”

Askew, 42, of Mililani, hopes to establish its Fisherman’s Wharf location and eventually launch more venues: “The idea of Makers & Tasters is to hit six locations on the island.”

Question: How long did it take you to come up with this (food truck venue) concept?

Answer: We’ve been working on this concept for a little over two years now. Just recently, in April, we signed the lease on this property, and then it took some time for permits and buildout. That’s why it’s September.

Q: What kind of financial commitment did you have to make?

A: Our buildout, when it’s done, is going to be a project of about $350,000. Just to kind of bring the lot up, and it’s not completed yet. …We got our shipment of tables, but only a third of the shipment is the color we asked for. (Laughs) Just that kind of stuff. But we’re open. …

When we’re all finished, there will be seating for about 180 people. We’ll have a full-time bar; in about three weeks, we’ll have our liquor license. So you can really have a nice outdoor experience next to the waterfront with refreshing adult beverages and one of 15 different food options to choose from. It’s what the vision is for this location.

Q: How did you come up with the concept?

A: What we’ve experienced since we’ve been in business now for almost five years is that vendors are real dependent on our Eat the Street events doing well for them. And so, if we have one event a month and it’s a rainout or it’s not a good event, that’s a lot to throw your bets against.

… We really can’t continue to grow that event from a vendors’ perspective. So, for me, my decision was, instead of pacing our lives out at a one-day-event-a-month perspective, it seemed to make more sense to have more daily transaction opportunities.

… For a lot of food vendors, they’re figuring out how to up their staff and their stamina as a business owner, going from one day a month to possibly two to five days a week. …

We want to bring all the community together, which is why we called it Makers & Tasters. It’s about bringing our food community and connecting them with the eater community, the tasters.

Q: Do you ever get criticism from restaurants?

A: I have not. … That is more national, things you read in the newspaper that are happening across the country — I don’t see it much here — is when a food truck pulls up right in front of a restaurant. … Ultimately, we are an establishment where a former establishment was. … Everybody seems real respectful.

Q: What can people expect when they come here (to Makers & Tasters)?

A: We basically identified categories within our community — a sandwich category, pizza category, drinks, pupu type of vendor. … Kau Kau Grill, their ribs are really good. Inferno’s Pizza and Pacifico Pizza are two great pizza companies that you could expect to see here. … We said, OK in this category there’s only four vendors that can be here and in this category, like a drink vendor, there can be only two — one tea and one lemonade — so that everybody gets their fair share at operating.

Q: So, not to worry, you’ll still be doing your once-a-month events?

A: Yes. And we’re really excited because this is going to be, for the next few years, our permanent home for Eat the Street. We’ve been kind of hopping around since the development happened at South Street, so now we’re able to stay here and be secured.

Q: What kind of lease do you have?

A: We currently have a 3 1/2-year lease. It started this month. From there, if OHA is still working on their community planning, then we will kind of just stay here until they figure out what’s next for this property. We would love to be here forever.

… The idea for Makers & Tasters is to hit six locations on the island and bring a brand with us that really welcomes families and a safe environment and quality food vendors.

Q: Where would those six locations be?

A: We’ve looked Windward side. Of course, the Ewa Beach-Kapolei area would be a great location. For us it comes down to where is there property, first of all, that’s open.

Q: Are you able to say what the rent is here?

A: I probably wouldn’t want to disclose that. … It’s a real lease. We’re paying real rent. For us as a company, it’s the first time that we’re paying this type of rent to be at a location. We’ve been partnering all these years with organizations like Kamehameha Schools and, as a sponsor, they’re sponsoring through their land.

Q: Is that a little scary?

A: It is. It’s scary. I basically created a business model that if one element of the business model, the vendors, has not bought into the idea, then we put a lot of risk and trust into the community that we’ve been working hard for for five years.

For us, the thing that we’ve learned is that they (vendors) need to readjust as well. Just like I’ve had to hire more people to help me manage and keep things on track, they’ve had to do the same. For them, a lot of them are asking themselves if they are ready for that kind of commitment. So that’s what we’re experiencing right now, which is a good question that they are asking. It’s an important question to ask themselves.

Q: Is it a big step for them?

A: It is a big step. But I will say, at the end of the day, to make that decision, this is the probably the best deal in town that you can operate a business. We don’t come with the same type of commitment levels that a brick-and-mortar space would require. You could never go to the mall and say, “I just want to be there at Mondays at lunch and Saturdays for dinner.” It’s still a good next step.

Q: How do their leases work?

A: We are asking for one-year commitments. Basically, if they commit to being here for three lunches a week, we’re just asking them to commit to that for one year. It’s important for me from a customer, you as the customer, to be able to know who is going to be here and that when you come they will be here.

Q: How many customers would you like to see in a day?

A: We would love to see a good 1,200 people a day. That would take care of the community of vendors here. If it’s less, then it’s harder to spread the love among 15 vendors, so we hope to achieve that by reaching out to the tourism industry, the local network. … (We will) bring in live music and hula … and continue our festival environment on the weekend. This is a great location for festivals.

Q: When was your actual first day?

A: Saturday. … Saturday and Sunday collectively we had about 15 vendors between the two days. A little slower.

For this district, what we’re figuring out is this is a business district. Lunches Monday through Friday are the best days of the week here. It’s just about building programming and awareness and letting people know that we’re open and that you can come and hang out on the weekend. Stop and grab your plate lunch before you go to the beach, that sort of thing.

Q: What works as far as marketing?

A: We’ve always done social media. We’ve got probably a good 30,000 followers on social media. Other than that, community outreach within the neighborhoods and that sort of thing is what we’re going to do. For us that’s a new area for us to look at traditional marketing. We’ve survived all these years off of really loyal social media following.

Q: You mentioned opening six locations. Is that already in the works?

A: Really we need to establish this location first because it’s so very new for us. …

There’s a whole growth pattern plan that we need to come up with. For us, what we’re always looking for, I have to say, is new and innovative vendors. We have a lot of traditional plate-lunch kind of vendors. Something that’s made the mobile food industry spike back out there is because there’s been innovation and creativity that’s coming out of the food trucks.

We love all our vendors, but what I haven’t seen yet is some of that innovative activity. So we really look forward to seeing more of that kind of vendor look to be part of our network.

Q: Are they out there and just not working with you?

A: I don’t know. We started with 12 (vendors) and we are up to 250 in our network. But in all of that growth there has been a lot of repetition.

Q: Any ideas?

A: … Nobody is a musubi vendor. We’ve had a pupu guy, but it’s small musubis. We have one vendor who does deep fried musubi, but we don’t have a musubi vendor.

Q: I read that food wasn’t initially your passion.

A: I worked in the music industry for a long time in Nashville. I did road management for musicians. I was young and thought that was cool. It got old really quick. … I ended up working for Starbucks. I think that’s maybe where business development in general (started), as a district manager. … It was something that I really enjoyed, seeing people apply something and then become successful.

When I left Starbucks, I had actually thought I would become a vendor myself. I was working on an ice-pop concept, but when I rolled out that concept it was probably two months after OnoPops did. When you have a niche market … they really had the benefit of being the first to market. …

Back then it was really a small community, so I said I really, first of all, don’t like making them. I had to chop so much watermelon and blend so much fruit. I thought, “Oh God, this is not what I want to do with my life.” … That’s when I came up with doing my own events and my own food festivals.

So I took that route and ended up booking OnoPops to be at my events. It worked out perfectly. … This is my passion, working with these businesses and seeing people be successful and live out their dreams.

Q: Is there anything you think I missed?

A: … I was 9 or 10 when Arakawa’s closed down in Waipahu. You kind of see this long-term place that you went to, that your family went to, to go shopping — and here’s Kmart and Walmart and this legacy has closed down and it’s really sad.

I think that that’s always lived with me. It’s about restoring the faith in local businesses and communities that you can be successful. You gotta do things a little differently today to stand up against these mainland companies.

You’re a consumer and the consumer’s dollar is very powerful. If you spend it on the local economy, the impact that you have on that economy is so great. So that’s what we’re going to spend a few months trying to convey to people. Or forever. (Laughs)