A pitch competition, a bus, and one stubborn idea about rice.
How it started
Rice Time was a pitch before it was ever a bus — the idea won first, and the kitchen came together after.
01
Before there was a bus, there was an idea on a slide deck — and it turned out to be a good one. In 2020, Jaden Radcliff brought it to UW Oshkosh's Culver's Business Model Competition and walked away with first place and $7,590 to get started.
A transfer to UW–Madison later, Transcend UW put money behind the idea too. Two competitions, two wins, and the idea hadn't even fed anyone yet.
02
In the summer of 2023 the plan finally got an engine. Rice Time launched in the Hortonville–Appleton area — Alonzo Park on Mondays and Fridays, the Greenville farmers market on Wednesdays.
A few hours an afternoon, a very short menu, and immediate feedback from a line of hungry people. You learn fast when someone is waiting.
03
The cooking came a decade before the business — a family friend from Vietnam taught Jaden to make proper Vietnamese fried rice, and it went from there.
Nearly every cuisine on earth has a rice dish it would defend in a fight. That's a menu that never runs out of room — and why it's always time for rice.
Rice is never the wrong answer.
04
Five majors and a master's in Design + Innovation later, Jaden thinks about the kitchen the way he'd think about any other system. A kitchen is a system, a menu is a design problem, and a service window is a hard constraint.
He's only about half joking when he says the recipes are down to a science.
