New Partner to Carlsbad Food Tours: Gonzo Ramen

Gonzo Ramen was founded by Mika and Jamison Murphy with the dream of bringing upbeat, welcoming Japanese atmosphere and authentic flavors of Japanese comfort food to Carlsbad, CA.  Their three sons grew up in Okinawa, Japan and the Murphy family has lived in Carlsbad and Oceanside for 12 years afterwards.  It is their pleasure to introduce Japanese soul food and hospitality to Carlsbad and the city’s visitors.

Gonzo opens right before a national emergency, who does that right?  Without any foresight for this one of a kind mishap, they unsuspectingly opened our doors to an unusual modern day paradox!  They had just completed construction, cleared city permits, health permits, hired staff, and have been paying our lease for the last six months securing our location without any income from the restaurant with bills quickly piling up.  They opened their restaurant one week prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic…

​Like many small businesses, they were devastated.  On the 2nd week of opening the restaurant, they made a decision to notify most of employees a temporary leave of absence till further notice.  Then it was time to roll up their sleeves, Mika (Mother) and her three sons were the only staff members during these trying times.  The silver lining in this is we have come together for the sole purpose of keeping Gonzo Ramen open to the public and they did!

Gonzo offers authentic Japanese ramen dishes with Japanese beer, sake and soju cocktails.  Mika wanted to bring her hometown Niigata-Ramen to Carlsbad.

Carlsbad Food Tours has added Gonzo as a food tour partner and hope to work closely with them to promote their delicious Japanese ramen noodles.