Westport International Food Week brings new crowds every year. It is a great opportunity for customers to expand their palates and support local restaurants.
Throughout the week, each participating restaurant will showcase its own special menu and offer limited-time creations.
“I was just tired of eating the same foods over and over again, so I was like, I want to try something new,” Aicha Matrane, a restaurant customer, said.
Kurt Wheeler is a regular customer in Westport because he appreciates the diversity of food choices and being able to support local restaurants.
“People have this idea like it’s gonna cost more, and maybe it does, but a lot of times it doesn’t,” Wheeler said. “And it really helps the community, places like Westport or the Plaza or some of these other communities, stay afloat and keep their businesses open.”
For many restaurants, the increase in foot traffic is needed more than ever as owners deal with the impacts of international tariffs.
“We need to pay rent, lights, you know, all the employees,” Chef Fernanda Reyes at Taco Naco said.
Reyes says she has seen higher prices since the beginning of the year.
With the international tariffs, prices of raw ingredients and other products like packaging, cups, lids and utensils have gone up. Machinery needed in the kitchen take longer to arrive.
“We just buy two machines to cut the meat and they’re not delivering, because they say everything is stuck in the borders,” Reyes said. “For me, the biggest impact is when they change the ingredients, because your recipes are established with certain brands or a certain product in quality, and don’t be able to have that quality affect us.”
In the crowd of the lunch hour rush, many customers throughout Westport were eager to support local restaurants to help keep diversity in ethnic cuisines vibrant in the community.
“Most large populated cities, obviously, there’s going to be a mix of different type of people," Madeline Villalobos, a restaurant customer said. "So it’s really important to have that kind of representation. “I think it’s really important that the places where they get their food, where they get that sense of home, it doesn’t go up and make them like have to resort to other cheaper, not as healthy options.”
Reyes started the Taco Naco franchise in Kansas City five years ago because she wanted to fill a gap in exceptional Tex-Mex.
She hopes to continue doing what she loves and sharing her culture with Kansas City.
“In 15 years, I saw a big growth in Kansas,” said Reyes. “It’s a great place to live and have a lot of culture.”
2025 Westport International Food Week Line Up:
Brix - 4112 Pennsylvania Ave.
Jerusalem Cafe - 515 Westport Rd.
Moti Mahal II - 4113 Pennsylvania Ave.
Taco Naco KC - 4141 Pennsylvania Ave.
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