K pasta from Aly: 20 minutes

Zoe: 0min - 3 min

(Talks about Suzies Farms)
Hey says, Well how come you are not using our vegetables? So we met with him
and starting buying from him and through them, we have learned other ways to
plant based produce and local craft makings like our sausage.
We use (water proof??) plans, yeah.
Me: And do you educate your customers about where your food comes from?
Yeah we do. Most of the time we post something on where the food is from. Like I
said, Suzies Farms, we do a lot of cross marketing through them.
Me: You mentioned pasta but what other popular foods are served here?
Um, well we roll our own meat balls. Thats a very popular item. Um, we do, lets
see, we make our own lasagna from scratch. We do raviolis from scratch. So yeah,
it is definitely wrapped around pasta. Our menu is pretty small. Um, we do, you
know, not for you guys, local beer companies and wine. Things like that. But its
mostly pasta.
Me: Whats your busiest season?
Summer. Yep, we get a lot of hotel people coming here on vacation. Summer by far
is the busiest season.
How many people do you serve?
Oh gosh in summer time? How many people. Id have to look that up. I know one
thing. I know that our sales are double during summer time. I could look that up
and know it offhand.
Me: Would you consider your restaurant to be energy efficient?
Well Imperial Beach, we opened up at that time when all businesses had to be eco
friendly so pretty much, all of our construction had to pass these codes that
Imperial Beach enforced. I dont know if thats the right word. But yeah, we had
to.
Me: So its pretty much all green?

No, not all green. Our lighting, our water heater, um oh gosh theres a lot of things.
Uh, yeah I mean we had to do code to IB. We were restricted to that.
So we found that ecotourism is... that affects the environment around us....
(continues into 3:02 and beyond.)
Stephanie: 3 min- 6 min
ZS: Ecotourism is the practice of touring different areas while leaving a positive
impact on the environment, do you consider K-Pasta to be Ecotourism?
AK: Definitely, I mean, we do scratch cooking, we buy local suppliers, everything
we use we re-use; there's nothing that we throw away. We make a point of using
containers that can be recycled, we use paper bags, we definitely do not choose
Styrofoam for that purpose. We don't have a lot of waste. We support estuary
[Tijuana River Estuary] and like I said local farms.
ZS: So you mentioned work with Suzie's Farms, is there any other organizations
that you support that promote Ecotourism?
AK: We do a lot of work with Tijuana River Estuary, I am not sure if you guys
made it there, but it is a great place to check out. They do tours and have a little
gift shop there you can go to. We do a lot of purchasing at specialty produce and
they support local farms, so especially for produces there is a big warehouse where
you can purchase for restaurants and they do a lot of local farms California for
sure. Lets see what else? I mean we buy our Salami and our Sausages from local
companies but I don't think they are organic, Tarantino's is a supporter of local
farms and they sell at Whole Foods- They are actually the Padres official Hot Dog
now by the way- it's all natural products but I don't think It's all organic. It's hard to
do all organic; I know that. Our prices are low so we have to pick and choose
wisely with what we buy.
ZS: If anything, what do you do to promote sustainability?
AK: Sustainability; basically all that I said. We buy local. We are also part of a
group where we buy all of our flours and grains through a _____ standard, where
everybody is buying one product do it is less transportation pollution. We are

scratch made, we use everything. We make make chicken stock out of the leftover
parts of vegetables and chicken. We use compostable to-go containers and things
like that. I mean we do our best, we are small, but we do our best.

Allan: 6 min - 9 min

Zoe: Do any of your profits go towards the community or conservation efforts?
Annie: We donate just about everything. Just about every organization comes to us.
We're pretty friendly like that. Boys and Girls Club, the estuary, there's a bunch of
surf contests at the beach; we do everything. (inaudible). Oh, we do a lemonade
stand every year. Alex's Lemonade Stand, where we do natural lemonade that
supports research for childhood cancers. That's a big one that we do every year.
Zoe: Is there any way that you feel that you can improve your support of
ecotourism and sustainability?
Annie: Yeah. I mean, we're always going back and forth with trying to survive
financially and making the right choices with the products that we use, so we
always have to kind of cross-check where we're buying from and, "Is it worth it?"
Yeah, I think there's always room for improvement.
Zoe: Last question: Do you cook anything ahead of time and reheat it?
Annie: No, we're doing it the real way, the whole scratch-made way. It takes a lot
of work to do what we do. A lot of our costs go to labor, but it's worth it. And that's
about it. We're really choosing the right ingredients, making things from scratch,
and trying our hardest to put product out like that. Alright, guys. I really hope you
got some stuff.
Alan: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Annie: You're welcome. What's next? Where are you guys after this?
Lesley: We're going to eat here.
Annie: Oh, you're going to eat here?
Lesley: We would love to.
Annie: Awesome! Fantastic! This made my day!
(all laugh)
Dylan: 9 min - 12 min.
Annie: So, Patricia, inside, would love to give you a rundown of what we make.
There's a lot of detail to what we make, so she can tell you everything, and I'll help
you out as well, but I do kind of have to run, too. Okay.

Dylan (a few seconds later) [inaudible]: Mrs. Kirsner, I did some background
research. Does your husband still own K Surplus? The hardware store in National
City?
K-Pasta: Yes.
Dylan: How long has he been doing that?
K-Pasta: He's been doing that I think 27 years, now. Yeah. How do you know
it?
Dylan: I did some background research on this restaurant. I typed your name and
the restaurant name up in Google, but the information from the websites was
mostly the same for each article. Just to clarify, is it called K-Plus or K-Surplus?
K-Pasta: K-Surplus. It's kind of where our name came from um, because he had
a His business, K-Surplus (unintelligible due to background noise) K-Pasta, of
course, came up, and it's kind of catchy right now. (says something about the word
pasta being Spanish as well.) That's where the name came from. Have you been
there?
Dylan: Not yet.
K-Pasta: It's a wonderful place to explore.
Dylan: How long has this restaurant been open?
K-Pasta: Five years this summer.
Stephanie: This summer? Or last summer?
K-Pasta: This summer would be five years, so four and a half.
Dylan: And what year was that?
K-Pasta: That was uh, 2011? Yeah.
(I'm cutting this next part a bit short because I'm not facing a mic in this clip, and
therefore hard to understand.)
Dylan (guessing what I said): And that was how long after that first city meeting?
Because I found this document online about the minutes from what I think was a
city council meeting.
K-Pasta: Say that again? Of what?
Dylan (can't be heard): The minutes of a city council meeting.
K-Pasta: The minutes of an Imperial Beach city meeting?
Dylan: Yeah.
K-Pasta: Ok. So what was it about?
Dylan: There were several topics, but, uh, this restaurant was one of them.
K-Pasta: Yeah, we had to do several meetings, and

Carla: 12 min - 15 min

KPasta: They just launched the new eco friendly um, business building material
mechanical process. um Yeah we had to go through that. It was a big process.
D: um How long did it take you to open this restaurant?
KPasta: Um yeah of course I do. Um well we started the project, and then I got
pregnant with twins. So um we stalled for as long as possible. That actually took,
(pause) two years. Yeah. But we drowned our feet at [inaudible]
D: And since then is has become a family business?
KPasta: Yes, it is. (laugh) It sure is.
KPasta: So the question was summer time? Yeah? How many people come during
summer time?
[Audio is inaudible but she talks about her specials of the week. SHe also talks
about how during summer, there are more tourists than any other time of the year.
But there are normally many customers around lunch time. When we were there,
we saw many US Marines coming in for lunch.)

Alyssa: 15 min- 18 min

Annie: So who did you guys meet with at the hotel?
Zoe: Uhh we met with the manager, well we tried to interview with her today but
we couldnt but we were able to explore the hotel.
Annie: Yeah thats pretty cool
Zoe: Yeah
Annie:Theyre definitely eco-friendly, thats why it took them so long to open up
Stephanie: Yeah I remember like 5 years ago they started constructing
Annie: Yeah! Its been a long time, they went through a lot, and not just with
constructing but with ownership as well.
Zoe: So you have twins?
Annie Yeah, theyre six years old, two boys, theyre fraternal so theyre very
different looking, and yeah, theyre a handful. Theyve got a lot of homework, do
you guys?
Stephanie: *laughs* They do not have a lot of homework!

Annie: I was kinda surprised, I mean theyre learning how to read, so theres extra
stuff on reading and stuff like that, but it takes so long! But they also do spelling
and they have projects. Its just kinda crazy.
Stephanie: Are they in first grade or in kindergarten?
Annie: First!
Zoe: What school do they go to?
Annie: They go to Sacred Heart in Coronado, its a private school.
Annie: Did you guys already order?
Everyone: No not yet!
Annie: What do you guys like? Pasta? Whats your favorite kind?
Jr: Uhh Like Fettuccine
Annie: Thats very very popular! I suggest alfredo.
Junior: 18 min- 20 min
(The interview is over, but she asks what kind of pasta we like.)
K-Pasta: I would suggest either A, Spinach with the alfredo is very good or um if
you're feeling a little adventurous you can get the super bate, and that is made with
organic grains from Suzie's farms. Um we put swished chard, we put broccoli
leaves and kelp in there and thats really good. We always pick Sussies for that
product and then there's a really good cream sauce, its a bacon pork gonzola bean,
um its delicious. We can have you taste it if you want.
IB Divers from Aly: 12 min
Carolina: 0 min- 3 min
Alex; Making a book, a documentary and like a bunch of art pieces about different
like um eco-touristic businesses and sites in imperial beach and other places in san
di- the San Diego Area and we just wanted to talk to you about some stuff on here
about your business and much of your experience working here and we will put all
the and like put it all into like data to make the book as best as we can
IB Divers; Alright,
ALEX;um well just start off with couple of questions so, what do you enjoy most
about your job?
IB divers; The water

ALEX;haha ok, that one's good so do you feel like you get- like you're promoting a
hey- a healthier environment
Ib divers: we try to with our training
Alex; ok so can you like elaborate what what do you explicitly do in you training?
IB Divers; so we do a majority of our classes in ecological reserves where
animals are protected, youre not allowed to take anything that's not man
made so like yea so you lose a pair of sunglasses you can take that but other
than that shells and marine life all of that remains untouched and stays in the
environment
Alex; Ok so how does pollution impact your business ?
IB Divers; Pollution impacts the business most commonly through visibility uh
a lot of run off into the water and such will greatly diminish what can be seen
and then the amount of marine life of course drops over the years as well
Alex; Alright so how is di- like how sorry, um how has diving in imperial beach
changed in over the years
IB Divers; Diving in imperial beach over the years hasn't changed too much in
the last ten years but in the last 50 there has been a drop in fish count and
visibility
Alex; Ok so what was the coolest thing you have seen diving?
Ib Divers:The coolest thing i've seen diving is probably a giant black sea bass
that's about a 300 pound fish
Alex: Like how big was it?
IB Divers:*draws face of the fish on whiteboard* not a great drawer here but
that's basically the head on the fish that's what you see coming at you and
then as it turns sideways it's about the size of the board big fish very big
and the a ability to reach out and touch them is quite well they're a they're a very
docile fish they're not aggressive toward humans so they a tend to follow you
around while you dive so um so sometimes they'll come up really close to you and
sometimes you'll have three or four following you around very a very simple fish
Alex: 3 min- 6 min
Alex: how are you helping the community become more eco friendly?
Kyle: we participate in beach cleanups, where we help with cleaning up trash
that's found on local beaches and thing like that but for our classes and tours

we encourage them to pick up any debris, litter that they find in the water as
well so we can help bring it out as long as everybody participates a little bit it
will make a difference.
Alex: so how often do you participate in beach cleanups trips?
Kyle: Beach clean ups are really gonna very obviously a lot more in the
summertime cuz we can get better participation, but as far as underwater
picking up trash we do that every single time we go out.
Alex: what do you love about your job?
Kyle: I think the biggest thing is to meet so many interesting people, um I
have created a lot of long lasting friendships
Alex: are most the people tourist or locals
Kyle: no most of them are locals
Alex: how many people come into the shop daily?
Kyle: maybe 12 to 24
Alex: how has this company grown
Kyle: more people come in the door, ahh I mean when we first opened retail
facility we started training in 89 running tours and thing like that we didn't
have a retail facility till 2002, from 2002 we had maybe 2 people a day come
in.
Alex: what the most challenging thing since you started working here?
Kyle: The most challenging thing, the internet, the internet is difficult to deal
with because everyone tries to um, not everyone sorry that a blanket term, the
majority of your interests have switched online, the quick, easy,instantaneous
gratification of clicking and getting what you like, so things where you
actually have to go do them drop down over the years.
Alex: what day and time are you the busiest?
Kyle: weekends, saturday all day.

Ysabell: 9 min - 12 min

Kyle: I guess the one part of our business that is not eco friendly is our air
compressors operate off of oil inside them, but we do use a synthetic oil that is
recyclable, but unfortunately for the pistons to move inside the compressor they
must have oil. Also the other sustainable part is the we must use vehicles to

transport our equipment which... you know... its (he giggles) ideally everyone
would stop driving cars but I think you would have trouble getting that one across.
Lesley: How did the beach clouser, like after really bad rain storms, when they got
bech closure here in imperial beach, how does that affect your business? Or like
how many days out of the year would you say that it messes with your business?
Kyle: It's not a huge effect, because of the amount of beach closures we have more
switch to La Jolla for our actual diving, so in a way you can say that it got a big
impact but a small impact because we don't use the beach very much at all
anymore because of the pollution, it has a much smaller impact on our business
when it does close, so we have adapted.
Lesley: Do you dive out here in IB any more?
Kyle: We try to put some dives together here and there but its is very difficult to
find a time when people can see anything in the water.
Lesley: So when you have tourist that come here that would come to your facilities
here and then maybe drive up to La Jolla?
Kyle: Yeah we can do it that way, we also have a another facility in La Jolla that
was built many years after this one just because of the constant use of up there.
Lesley: How do most people hear about your programs?
Kyle: Majority would be military, we teach recreationally on base, and we have
done that since 89, so our primary client would be actively to be military
personnel, the civilian side is by word of mouth mostly.
Lesley: Are there any hotels or local places here that refer you or refer people too?
Kyle: Pretty much anyone refers them to use cause we are the only facility in the
South Bay, so if somebody is interested in doing something like that then yes we
do reserve the referrals so
Zoe: Do you think it changes people's perspective when they see like the animals
underwater and the severe yet like pollution?
Kyle: I think that a person coming from a place with beautiful crystal clear water
and then come here can see the difference and also if you talk with people who
have been diving here for 20-30 year they will tell you a big difference as well
Lesley: Is there any other question? (waits for a while) Thank you so much for
meeting with us we really appreciate it, thank you for standing in
Kyle: Yeah, no problem