How Spam Musubi ‘No Doubt’ Powered the Rams’ Latest Playoff Season

Restaurateur Kristy Apana forged a special bond with the team through food and her shared Polynesian heritage with Los Angeles star Puka Nacua.

Puka Nacua has had a standout season, and Spam could be the secret ingredient to his success. / Kevin Ng-Imagn Images

Long before her Spam musubi helped power an NFL football team into the playoffs, a future restaurateur was born in Maui. Food—and the connections it created, bolstered and enhanced—motivated Kristy Apana, who never stopped embracing her Polynesian heritage.

Eventually, she moved to Malibu, Calif. She settled into a quiet neighborhood near the beach.

She opened her restaurant, the aptly named Kristy’s Village Cafe, in 2011, across the street from Zuma Beach. She wanted to focus on community, connection—through healthy, delicious meals and premium ingredients.

Apana didn’t know how to run a restaurant. She figured out how and realized that it suited her. She took care of people, filling bellies and facilitating moments of grand, remember-that-night-forever significance. She continued to operate Kristy’s not for profit but for passion, a sentiment that resonates with every dinosaur magazine writer left on earth.

After settling in Malibu, Apana watched a football family move into her neighborhood. As the Rams’ general manager, Les Snead built championship teams. His wife, Kara, had a long history in football, too, along with a son who just finished his college career at Texas. Les’s son, Logan, works as a recruiting analyst for the USC football program.

One random afternoon, an accident shut down the Pacific Coast Highway. It stranded Kara from her neighborhood for three hours. She popped into Apana’s restaurant. They got to talking and never stopped. The Sneads became regulars at Kristy’s and friends with Kristy, often dining there on Friday nights, watching kids scatter around the lawn out front, or bumping into Malibu-based celebrities. All adored Apana, Kara soon found out, because she took care of them and never transacted on relationships. “True Ohana,” Kara says.

Les was an easy customer to cook for—after Apana learned his preferences. He liked to eat the same thing over and over, and then switch to another thing and eat that over and over, too. He always ordered fish and vegetables at first. But, after about three years, Apana says, he asked if she served pork chops. They had been on the menu the entire time.

Rams general manager Les Snead has helped lift the Rams back into Super Bowl contention. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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As one Friday night dinner at Kristy’s became 50, Les bonded with another regular, actress Shannen Doherty. Both, to Kara, were forces of nature and creatures of habit. They developed an inside joke: That each had a button on the register that would keep new waiters or waitresses from making mistakes.

Apana found that the executive focused primarily on football. But he soon revealed layers that he didn’t reveal often to many others, too. Their talks often wound to parenting, where each gleaned from the other, their philosophies dissimilar. Apana preferred “tough love.” But she also encouraged the GM to hug more often.

Eventually, whenever Kara left Los Angeles, Apana transformed into Les’s personal Kristy’s Eats. She dropped off fish, pork chops, chicken breasts—the works—always accompanied, per his preference, with vegetables. When she made her own dinner, she made some for him, too, and dropped it off, giving the general manager one less responsibility to worry about and far more fuel than he would have ingested otherwise.

“Les is the type of person who, if he got home and had no food, would probably just skip dinner,” Apana says, “and go to bed.”

The Sneads became Kristy’s devotees and Kristy devotees. Apana did the same, becoming a Rams fan. She eventually hired Les’s daughter, Cannon, as a hostess.

Apana lost another restaurant she operated, not Kristy’s, in 2018, in the Woolsey Fire. Kristy’s, the restaurant, barely survived. Meanwhile, all of Los Angeles embraced the Rams’ first Super Bowl run under Snead, while California Strong, an initiative spearheaded, in part, by then-Rams quarterback Jared Goff to help those in need, took off.

Los Angeles lost Super Bowl LIII to New England and began to rebuild. So did Apana, with her restaurant. Local government officials didn’t set up programs as they would after the more recent fires in Southern California. Repair efforts centered on community, Apana says.

Her family and the Sneads grew closer. As another Super Bowl neared after 2021, Apana’s high school–aged son, Maika, played in a state championship soccer game. Les attended, in support, just like Kristy went to most Rams’ home games. He saw her son’s team lose that day in the “most heartbreaking fashion”—overtime; their goalie, slipping at the last, worst possible second; the slow roll of a soccer ball into the goal; pure, genuine anguish.

Super Bowl LIII had reinforced that very concept for Snead. He went to the soccer team’s season-ending dinner—at Kristy’s, naturally. “I gotta talk to that goalie,” he told Apana.

He did more than that. He gave a speech to the entire team that she describes as “amazing” and met separately with the goalie.

“Can I give you a hug?” Snead asked, in way of an introduction. There it was— Apana’s lessons taking hold.

Her son wanted to stop by the Snead’s house that night to thank Les properly. It was too late. It didn’t matter. All knew their bond had long-ago solidified. Snead and the Rams would soon triumph. By then, the Apana’s already knew the human being beneath and behind the most cosmic, most philosophical approach to building teams in football.

Somewhere along the way, in all that community and so many connections and moments, Apana floated another idea to the general manager, who was, simply, her friend.

“If you ever have a Polynesian player, send them my way,” she told him.

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On Day 3 of the 2023 NFL draft, a general manager known for the phrase “F--- them picks,” found a cornerstone in the fifth round. In college at BYU, Puka Nacua had produced consistently at high levels.

Snead could not believe Nacua had lasted that many picks without being selected. Many quote-unquote “draft experts” saw the wideout “struggle” against press coverage, with running upright routes, and with his overall speed. Snead saw two years of elite production at a program that didn’t surround Nacua with a bevy of future NFL talent.

 Apana noticed the selection, saw Nacua, and noted his Polynesian heritage. After one game, early into his rookie season, she sent a lei (garland or wreath), culled from leftover flowers at her restaurant, down to the locker room for him. This gesture, sweet and kind as it was, didn’t take hold.

“He prefers food,” Kara told Apana afterward.

Food? Food! That fell right in Apana’s wheelhouse.

“What do you want?” she asked Nacua at a practice. “What do you miss?”

“The one thing I can’t find is a good Spam musubi,” he responded.

“Of all the things you’d want!” Apana thought to herself.

Followed by, to Nacua, “O.K., that I can do. Easy.”

The restaurateur and the surprise, superstar receiver understood the cultural imprint food had on Polynesians. “Food is everything to us,” Apana says. “It’s our love language. Everything goes back to food and eating, or sharing a meal together.”

That Nacua wanted comfort food, specifically, rather than the elaborate meals Apana serves at Kristy’s, did not surprise her. He missed home. She still sometimes visits relatives in Maui. She also understood the pull. “Being in the restaurant industry, you see a lot [of emphasis] on comfort food,” Apana says. “When you need comfort food, you go back to your childhood. [And] in Hawai‘i, [Spam musubi] was our peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

“It’s a staple growing up in a Polynesian household,” Nacua told Sports Illustrated in early December. “That was a quick snack my mom used to make for us. My brother would make them and sell them at every youth football game. At every postgame, they’d be there.”

Plus, he adds, “There’s not a ton of local [Polynesian] food over here by the facility.” 

More connections, more tethering, soon followed. Snead told Apana that he worried sometimes about Nacua’s diet—concern borne, primarily, from Nacua not eating as much as he needed to fuel himself while at team headquarters.

The rookie wideout, who had slipped in the draft, became one of the NFL’s best receivers early into that rookie season. Apana soon challenged Nacua. If he won Rookie of the Year, she would make an entire tray of Spam musubi and deliver it to Rams headquarters. Snead injected a little reason into this challenge, lessening the goal, but not far. Nacua needed to make the Pro Bowl, a rarity for rookies. C.J. Stroud ultimately won Offensive Rookie of the Year that season. But Nacua did make the Pro Bowl and Apana delivered the tray, as promised.

She makes her Spam musubi in a specific way. To create different textures and allow for more flavor from ingredients that aren’t Spam, she fashions a version more like a sandwich, with rice on the top and bottom and Spam stuffed in between. (Many others place the Spam on top of the rice.)

Apana also tops her Spam musubi with the “perfect Teriyaki sauce,” which she uses at her restaurant. Her sauce features a blend of sweetness and just enough saltiness. It’s her mother’s recipe—the secret sauce to the Rams’ secret sauce in 2025.

As the tough-love parent in their crew, the running joke with Apana’s deliveries became that Nacua had to play well to earn his Spam musubi. And, after so many game-day deliveries, alongside Nacua’s endless Kristy’s marketing efforts in the locker room, teammates began to notice this comfort-food ritual.

Kobie Turner soon joined the Spam musubi crew, even looking up recipes that spoke to his individual palate. Apana tweaked the ones she made for him. One time, when she handed his over in the locker room after a game, Turner told her, “This is better than a game ball!”

Soon, at least a half dozen Rams needed their Spam musubi before and after home games.

Nacua grew close with Apana’s son, too. The Rams star jokes that they look like brothers and sometimes refers to Maika as My Twin. He refers to Apana as Aunty Kristy. Or just Aunty, for short. In Polynesian culture, that signals paramount respect.

She refers to him as a “good, good human being.”

“It took off from there,” Nacua says.

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Apana continued operating Kristy’s in Malibu, while never missing her now-beloved Rams. Her home island, Maui, sustained extensive damage from fires that raged in August of 2023. She knew people who lived, worked or both amid the devastation. On the first morning of those fires, she had seen posts of high winds whipping across the islands. “Oh, my God,” she thought, “that looks like our fire winds.”

In 2024, Nacua missed parts of his second season. He still managed 79 receptions and 990 receiving yards in only 11 games.

Pacific Palisades, close in proximity to Malibu, was also waylaid by fires in early 2025. Although her restaurant’s location didn’t fall in the “fire zone,” that fire impacted her business more than COVID-19 had. She spent the subsequent weeks feeding firefighters stationed at Zuma Beach.

So when the Sneads and, by extension, the Rams, planned to take the team to Maui for a training and bonding session this past June, they invited Apana as an unofficial “ambassador.” They christened this trip Mauicamp.

Apana hadn’t been “home” since Maui burned. She considered herself beyond fortunate to have been born and raised there. “You don’t realize that community spirit, what it means or what it is, until you’re away.” It took some time to understand that not every family had dinners for 30 for no specific reason other than that’s what they do.

All the bonds, this community that the Rams created outside of Los Angeles, the connections, further tethered on this trip. The trip, she says, “Was such a beautiful thing, just helping the economy. Because for Maui, after the fires, what happens is people take Maui off their vacation list. They need the tourism.”

Did Apana make Spam musubi for the Rams?

Of course she did. She also had locals make their own iterations. Upon spying another ray of Spam musubi in the dining area, Nacua nearly fell over with excitement as he reached for the first of many Spam musubis he put down. Then he remembered their Polynesian heritage, the emphasis on respect.

He stopped before he took that first, glorious bite.

“Would you like some?” he asked his Aunty.

Then he began handing them out to teammates.

They snapped a picture on that trip, the receiver and the restaurateur. He wears a Hawaiian shirt, a lei and a necklace, and his right arm drapes over Apana. Their smiles dominate the image. There’s healing in that. Comfort, too.

Kristy Apana and Puka Nacua share a special bond that’s been solidified through food and a shared Polynesian heritage. / Courtesy of Kristy Apana

Kara, prompted for her impressions of the Maui trip, highlighted its team-building nature, small-group conversations that might not have happened otherwise, and the “glue” that resulted from all the bonding. She also adored the flag football clinics the Rams put on, citing “the young lady Hawaiian badasses” and Nacua and fellow wideout Tutu Atwell, who both invested immediately in those camps. New wideout Davante Adams bonded with Matthew Stafford, his new quarterback. Adams soon joined the Spam musubi crew.

She also noticed how deeply the locals loved their football and how strongly they adored Nacua. “He is their [Shohei] Ohtani in a way,” she says.

Apana is now a Polynesian ambassador for the Rams. Players clamor for her food, especially the staple that became their superpower this season.

Adams took defensive attention from Nacua, freeing both up for elite seasons. Nacua went off in 2025. He had 10 catches and 130 receiving yards in the opener,  over 100 yards receiving in Weeks 3, 4, 12, 13 and 14, 225 yards in Week 14 and 10 touchdown catches over the regular season. His yards per route (4.19) shot to a career high and tied for the league lead, as did his first-down production (a full 21.7% of his catches). No other player had ever cleared even 20%. He compiled the 14th-best single season ever for a wideout in ’25—despite missing one game due to injury.

Powered by Spam musubi, of course.

Still, after a loss to Atlanta in the regular season’s penultimate game, Snead didn’t deliver his post-game snack, per usual. Nacua hadn’t played anywhere near his own ridiculous standard, catching five passes for 47 yards and one score. Kara had brought Apana down to deliver it herself.

As Nacua cradled his Spam musubi, he told Apana, “Aunty, I thought I didn’t play well enough to earn them!”

Should the Rams make the Super Bowl, Apana is likely to join them on the trip to Santa Clara. She’s not worried about their kicking game. She’s worried about finding a kitchen to utilize. “She takes care of EVERYONE,” Kara says.

The Rams now-no-longer-secret sauce

Another win, while in Maui, before another playoff season started: Kara sent a video of her husband on that Mauicamp trip. He’s standing on a field, with Nacua. Both hold Spam musubis. Both unwrap them. Growing up in Alabama, Snead says, meant Spam was part of rearing children. But he had never before tried a Spam musubi before this moment.

“Is this good?” he asks his superstar wideout.

“It’s fantastic,” Nacua says.

“What’s it gonna taste like?” Snead asks.

“Sweet and salty,” Apana responds.

The GM plunges, taking his first bite of the Rams now-no-longer-secret sauce to 2025. His review, sent this week over text: “Add the sushi element to the equation = [fire emoji] … took me 54 years on planet earth to try it [laughing/crying emoji].”

The wideout, in that video, on that field, gives a Top Chef-style review, both hips swaying.

This is community. This is connection. Told that she should accept credit for even a small slice of the Rams’ success, Apana says, “You know, I’m motivated by food. And, if food gets you just that little bit of an edge, let’s hope [that it helped the Rams this season].”

Nacua gives a more blunt answer. Did Spam musubi power another season for Super Bowl contention? “No doubt,” he says.

It did far more than that. Kara says that phrase, Ohana, the one she used to describe Apana, encapsulates this season; it is, in fact, this season. Ohana is spiritual in nature, grounded in principles such as family and the interweaving of human beings and relationships. It’s more than immediate family. It’s chosen family. It’s organizations, neighborhoods and football teams. It’s love without conditions, support and compassion above all else. And, for these Rams, it’s what tethered another potentially special season. The vibe, that spirit, both embodied by … Spam musubi.

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