Mike Castaneda auditions for the national TV show Shark Tank
by Amber Schmitz, Sumner Newscow — When you are at the Kansas Wheat Festival, look for Mike Castaneda, local owner of the food truck, Bade Truck. It may become famous someday by being on the national television show Shark Tank.
“I saw they were taking applications a few months ago, and a few weeks ago, I get a call out of the blue and they liked my story so they asked me a ton of questions,” Castaneda said.
He will find out in mid-August if he made the show.
“I wanted to get with a shark to possibly expand my reach and see what we could do,” he said.
Shark Tank is a TV series featuring very ambitious entrepreneurs, who present their business ideas to a group known as the “sharks.” Once submitted for audition, their ideas are thrown into the “shark tank” and the “sharks” decide if the business is worth funding.
“I’m asking the Sharks for $50,000 for 15% of my business, not just Bade Truck, but my LLC,” Castaneda said. “If I get more trucks or a restaurant or whatever, they’re in with me.”
Castaneda has owned the Bade Truck since October of last year, wanting to have his own business after leaving the Army.
“I wasn’t a cook in the Army, but I was known around base for my food,” he said.
He served at the joint base Lewis McCord in Washington before being sent to Fort Sill, Okla. He spent five years in the Army as a specialist and left on medical disability.
“Being chosen as one of the top ten cooks in America by the Food Network gave me a nice start,” he said.
He was featured on the Food Network’s All Star Academy cooking competition last year. Although he didn’t win the $50,000 top prize, he was still named one of the top ten cooks in America.
He got the name Bade after his son Brady’s nickname.
“His name is Brady, but his nickname is Bade,” he said.
Castaneda resides in Wellington with his wife, Jordyn, and their daughter, Emery, 3 1/2, and son, Brady, age two.
