Cara Nokes has a lot to be proud of, from a big, loving family to a wildly popular food truck – one that continues to grow and gain fans in the Tri-Cities and beyond.

The classically trained chef and co-owner of Hot Mess Burgers & Fries, a mainstay in downtown Kennewick, also now is living as her authentic self.

She came out as transgender earlier this year, sharing the news in a social media post that quickly went viral. Nokes was nervous at first, unsure at how she’d be received.

But overall, “there’s been so much support locally,” Nokes said.

And her bravery has inspired and helped others.

“We’ve managed to become this safe spot for a lot of the queer community in the Tri-Cities,” Nokes said. “As a trans person, you feel very alone, all the time. You don’t see a whole lot of other people like you. Before I came out publicly, I had never actually sat down and talked with another trans person. And then after coming out, I have had so many conversations with so many different people. It’s been a really beautiful experience.”

For Nokes, it was a long journey to that point.

Becoming a chef

She grew up in Covington, Washington, and moved to the Tri-Cities with her family in high school. By then, she already knew she wanted to be a chef.

At 8 years old, she was making sticky buns and watching Julia Child with her grandmother, and “I was like, ‘I want to do that. That’s what I want to do for the rest of my life,’” she said.

After graduating from Kennewick High School, Nokes went on to the Oregon Culinary Institute in Portland and spent years working in restaurants.

She moved back to the Tri-Cities in 2009, after the recession took a toll on Portland’s restaurant industry, and worked as a chef at eateries including Richland’s Fat Olives. Eventually, Hot Mess Burgers & Fries was born.

Nokes runs the food truck with her wife, Allyson, and business partner Ben Nichols, who’s also a classically trained chef. And it’s a hit, with a large fan base.

The food truck’s Facebook page has more than 17,000 followers.

Customers come from throughout the Tri-Cities and beyond for the burgers and fries. One family from Lakewood, near Tacoma, has visited three times in a year.

The Nokeses and Nichols put a great deal of care and skill into their burgers and fries. The buns, American cheese and ketchup, for example, all are made from scratch.

“My vision was, what if we use our chef techniques to make fast food? I wanted to recreate that experience, that nostalgia of going to a greasy burger stand and getting that giant burger,” Nokes said. “It’s caught on and we’re excited for the opportunities we have.”

Hot Mess is known for its inspired creations, from its Monster Mess, a massive burger with both chicken and beef, to its elote (grilled corn) fries and PB&J fries.

Even its Boring Mess, which is far from boring, explodes with flavor, boasting a cheesy smash patty, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and signature sauce.

Cara Nokes and her wife, Allyson, embrace in downtown Kennewick. They own Hot Mess Burgers & Fries with Ben Nichols.

| Photo courtesy Jan Mennenga

‘Our time to shine’

Hot Mess Burgers & Fries is set up in downtown Kennewick.

Nokes said she loves the feeling of community within downtown. Several other business owners are good friends; Hot Mess even has been helping spearhead a night market.

“If I’m having a bad day, I have a million different shoulders I can go cry on,” Nokes said of downtown. “It’s a wonderful place to be.”

The downtown community – and the Tri-Cities business community as a whole – has been welcoming and supportive of Nokes since she came out, she said.

She has been the target of hate, largely online. But she and her wife and their blended family of five kids, who range in age from 1 to 12 years old, are happy and thriving, she said.

Nokes first came out as trans about 10 years ago.

She’d always known she was different, but “growing up at the time (I did), trans people were just kind of a joke in movies. There wasn’t a lot of reference for how I was, how I felt. After my first daughter was born, I was in a different marriage and different situation, but I really started to realize who I was, and I wanted to start making moves toward becoming her,” Nokes said.

So, she came out, but “everything broke down” and Nokes wound up, “as a lot of trans people do, divorced, trying to figure things out, really scared,” she said.

“There were a lot of voices telling me that I was going to lose my daughter...so I went back into the closet and just continued on, as we say, ‘in boy mode’ for quite some time,” she said.

But being in “boy mode” wasn’t sustainable, and last year Nokes privately came out again.

Meaningful connections

Allyson – the couple married in 2017 – was accepting, and so were their children and friends. Nokes began to transition and came out publicly this past March.

She said it’s been deeply meaningful to find connection and community with other LGBTQ+ people in the Tri-Cities, and for Hot Mess to be a touchstone and safe space.

She has a vision for someday opening a production facility for Hot Mess and a network of Hot Mess food trucks owned by cooks, dishwashers and others in the restaurant world who might not otherwise have a path to a place of their own.

Nokes said her experience has been eye-opening and heartening.

At a recent Hot Mess Cool Night Market downtown was buzzing. It was full of love, acceptance, good food and community.

She plans to keep being herself, keep being a beacon.

“There’s this idea that the Tri Cities is a small town, but it’s a blossoming metropolitan area. It’s one of the bigger ones in our state at this point. As with any growing metropolitan area, it’s going to have more diversity,” Nokes said. “And of course, the old guard, the people who want things to stay the same – they’re going to be loud. They’re going to want to make you feel like this is wrong and things aren’t changing. But they really are (changing), and we need to find our community and be loud and show them that we’re here. We’re not going anywhere. It’s our time to shine and to help the Tri-Cities move into the 21st century.”