A
new generation of lunch trucks is hitting the streets. They serve
high-end fare such as grass-fed beef hamburgers, escargot and crème
brûlée. As they rove cities like Austin, New York, San Francisco and
Los Angeles, they alert customers to their locations using Twitter and
Facebook. Their owners include highly trained chefs and well-known
restaurateurs.
Results: Best Food Trucks
We
sampled the food at 10 lunch trucks around the country that serve
gourmet fare, from braised skate cheeks to bread pudding. One thing we
learned: If a truck is famous for a particular item or dish, order that
-- and skip the rest. Here are the results of our coast-to coast review.
Sean Flanigan
The Skillet lunch truck in Seattle.
Joshua
Henderson, 36, trained as a chef at the Culinary Institute of America
and cooked at the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills. Today, he owns two
lunch trucks that drive the streets of Seattle. Each truck serves about
200 lunches every day, and Mr. Henderson says he grossed about $400,000
last year, his first year in business, with only one truck in
operation. The only problem: “We go up against the stigma. We’re trying
to prove we’re on a different level than a lunch truck,” he says.
Lunch trucks once represented the nadir of culinary achievement,
conjuring up images of withered hot dogs and hygienically-challenged
kebabs. Today, even some chefs from Michelin-starred eateries are
migrating into a sector of the food business that seems particularly
well suited for a financial downturn. For would-be restaurateurs,
launching a culinary truck requires far less start-up capital than a
brick-and-mortar restaurant. At a time when consumers are cutting back
on restaurant spending, a food truck serving inexpensive lunches and
snacks can be an easier sell to diners.
The new breed of lunch truck is aggressively gourmet, tech-savvy and
politically correct. The Green Truck, which sells “sustainably
harvested” fish tacos, roams the streets of Los Angeles in vehicles
fueled by vegetable oil. The Dessert Truck in New York is owned by a
former Le Cirque pastry sous chef who donates proceeds from desserts
such as a pavlova with red fruit gelée to charity. In the San Francisco
Bay area, the RoliRoti rotisserie truck serves free-range chicken,
heritage pork and local lamb, prepared by owner Thomas Odermatt, a
Swiss former organic farming student whose business card reads
“Rotisseur.”
Though most of these trucks charge more than typical hot dog or taco
trucks, their meals generally cost less than comparable sit-down
restaurant fare. At New York’s Rickshaw Dumpling Truck—whose dumpling
recipes were created by Anita Lo, chef at the Michelin-starred
Manhattan restaurant Annisa—an order of six duck dumplings with dipping
sauce costs $6.50. In San Francisco, a skewer of escargot in puffed
pastry costs $2 at the Spencer on the Go truck, operated by chef
Laurent Katgely, who also owns Chez Spencer, an upscale French
restaurant.
A
high-tech rotisserie truck brings freshly roasted chicken to foodies at
San Francisco Bay Area farmers' markets. Anthony Lazarus reports.
Fancier
food on lunch trucks doesn’t necessarily mean better food, and
old-fashioned taco and kebab trucks often have delicious fare and loyal
fans. In Los Angeles, an organization called “Save Our Taco Trucks”
launched in March last year to support Mexican-food street vendors who
were battling new regulations that made operating in some parts of the
city more difficult.
Some newcomers says this passion for street food attracted them to
the business. Jesse Vendley, a 40-year-old originally from Calexico,
Calif., a city bordering Mexico, used to work as an advertising
copywriter in New York. His friends often raved about the hometown
dishes he cooked, particularly his carne asada, made with skirt steak
marinated in lime juice, garlic, spices and onions, then cooked on a
hot grill. In early 2006, Mr. Vendley attempted to raise money to open
a restaurant, but found little success.
Then he attended the Vendy Awards, a competition for street vendors.
The quality of food, and energy of the fans, “inspired me,” says Mr.
Vendley, who soon after launched a lunch cart in Soho. Today, Calexico
Carne Asada has two carts, which he owns with his two brothers and
Peter Oleyer, formerly a cook at Manhattan’s Cru restaurant. Later this
month, the team plans to open its first restaurant, in Brooklyn.
The new trucks are rolling in as many restaurants report steep
declines in their lunchtime traffic. Businesses from fast-food chains
to upscale steak houses have rolled out cheaper lunch menus to try to
persuade consumers to spend money during the work day.
Since
last summer, restaurateur Danny Meyer has posted a lunch cart outside
his restaurant Tabla, located in Manhattan’s Credit Suisse building,
serving less expensive versions of the restaurant’s upscale Indian
food. The timing has been fortuitous: “Bankers aren’t spending that
much on lunch these days,” says Michelle Lehmann, a spokeswoman for Mr.
Meyer’s company, Union Square Hospitality Group.
Jeff Blank, chef and owner of Hudson’s on the Bend, in Austin,
Texas, where the average check is $75, rolled out a lunch truck in
March. The truck, called the Mighty Cone, specializes in fried chicken,
shrimp and avocado coated with a mixture of almonds, sesame seeds,
cornflakes and chili flakes; average checks are under $10. At Hudson’s,
revenue is off by 20% to 25% compared with two years ago, Mr. Blank
says, but revenues from the truck have made up for those losses and
even allowed him to hire extra staff.
Evan Sung for The Wall Street Journal
In
spite of the softening of commercial real-estate prices , the costs of
opening a sit-down restaurant are still too daunting for many would-be
restaurateurs. Kenny Lao says that last summer, when he was looking for
a midtown Manhattan location for a second branch of his Rickshaw
Dumpling Bar, in which Ms. Lo is a partner, he was discouraged after
encountering prices of $200 to $300 per square foot. That led him to
launch the Rickshaw Dumpling Truck, which cost $150,000 to become fully
operational.
For many chefs, the biggest barrier to entering the street-vending
business is pride. Mr. Odermatt, originally from Switzerland, says that
before starting his business in 2002, he was astonished to learn that
Americans considered lunch trucks “roach coaches” and were often afraid
of catching microbes from the food. In response, he created trucks that
consumers could peer into and he sanitizes the trucks twice daily, Mr.
Odermatt says.
One fan of Mr. Odermatt’s truck is chef Charles Phan, of San
Francisco’s Slated Door fame, who likes the truck’s “really yummy”
porchetta sandwich of roasted pork loin rolled into pork belly and
sliced onto a French roll. He says the truck’s open design reminds him
of street food in his home country, Vietnam. Mr. Phan says he is also
in the early phases of planning his own lunch truck business, which
would also allow consumers to observe the food.
Another major hazard of the business, newcomers say, is
hostility—and even threats—from the competition. Mr. Lao says his entry
into the industry was marked by threats and sabotage by other vendors,
who parked their carts right in front of his sales window.
Permitting
and parking also make the job tough: Each municipality has its own
rules about where lunch trucks can park. In Seattle, street food
vendors are only allowed to park on private property, whereas operators
in other cities, including New York, can get a permit that allows them
to park in most public parking spots. RoliRoti operates in seven
counties around the Bay Area, and must pay for permits and follow
different regulations in each one. Like restaurants, lunch trucks are
inspected by city health departments. In New York, trucks are inspected
once a year, and investigated if a complaint is lodged against them,
says the New York City Department of Health.
New technology has been a game changer, allowing trucks to pick and
move to where the customers are on short notice. Kogi BBQ, a truck
serving Korean-barbecued meat inside Mexican-style tacos in Los
Angeles, became a media sensation earlier this year in part for its use
of Twitter, on which it currently has 28,000 followers. Following
Kogi’s example, more truck operators have begun using Twitter to post
messages on followers’ cell phones, alert customers of their
whereabouts and even ask for tips on parking spaces.
In spite of the economic climate—or perhaps because of it—some new
mobile lunch businesses are growing fast. On the Fly, in Washington
D.C., sells organic, vegetarian or local ingredient-based versions of
classic lunch-truck tacos and burgers. Michel Heitstuman, On the Fly’s
chief executive officer, started the company in late 2007 with one café
and one cart. Today, On the Fly operates eight carts, five cafes and a
catering company, and is working on a franchising agreement to expand
to other cities. Mr. Heitstuman says he recently ordered eight more of Chrysler’s electric GEM vehicles to keep up with demand.
A
successful start-up requires more than just a good idea. Kelsey Hubbard
tracks how Ben Van Leeuwan took a stroke of inspiration and despite the
recession, turned it into a successful ice cream company.
That’s
when the economic climate caught up with him: Chrysler filed for
bankruptcy April 30 and the independent agent helping to broker a deal
for the new vehicles called to say that On the Fly would need to pay in
cash to complete the deal. Jay Wik, a spokesman for Global Electric
Motorcars, a division of Chrysler, said that GEM has made no change in
its payment policy since the bankruptcy filing and does not require
cash payments for vehicles. On the Fly and the agent are currently
negotiating.
—Juliet Chung, Nick Wingfield, Yukari Iwatani
Kane, Keith Winstein, Rachel Emma Silverman and Anne Marie Chaker
contributed to this article.
Calexico Carne Asada Truck Tacos
These
tacos are among the most popular items at Calexico Carne Asada, which
has two carts in New York City and plans to open a Brooklyn restaurant
later this month. The company is co-owned by three brothers from
Calexico, Calif., and a former cook at Cru, a Michelin-starred
restaurant in Manhattan.
This version is
slightly adapted from their recipe. If possible, marinate the meat for
the full 24 hours to infuse it with maximum flavor. For a party, double
or triple the recipe, put all the ingredients out on a table and let
guests assemble their own tacos.
--Katy McLaughlin
Carne Asada Tacos
Evan Sung for The Wall Street Journal
The Carne Asada Taco at Calexico Lunch Cart
Yield: 8 tacos
Active Time: 25 minutes
Marinating Time: 6-24 hours
Cooking Time: about 10 minutes
- Juice of 1 lime
- Juice of 1 lemon
- ¼ cup vegetable or canola oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 small onion, thinly sliced
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon paprika or sweet pimentón
- ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
- 8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
- 1.5 pounds skirt steak, trimmed of silver skin and most fat
- 1 small head cabbage, cored and shredded
- Pico de Gallo (see below)
- Guacamole (see below)
Put
the first 10 ingredients into a medium bowl and whisk together. Pour
into a gallon freezer bag, add the steak, press out any air and seal.
Place bag into a large bowl and refrigerate, preferably 24 hours and no
less than 6 hours. Agitate bag occasionally to distribute marinade
evenly over meat.
Prepare a charcoal or gas
grill, or heat a grill pan until very hot. Remove steak from marinade
and pat dry with paper towels. Grill about 5 minutes per side, until
desired doneness. Let stand 5 to 10 minutes before slicing thinly
against the grain.
Open a clean, dry kitchen
towel and place on kitchen counter. Place a fry pan over medium heat.
Place one tortilla in pan and heat until pliable; flip and heat other
side, then place in center of towel. Repeat with remaining tortillas,
stacking them. Wrap the stack in the kitchen towel to keep warm.
To serve, place a few slices of meat in a tortilla and garnish with guacamole, pico de gallo and shredded cabbage.
Pico de Gallo
Active Time: 5 minutes
- 2 ripe tomatoes, chopped
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
- Juice of ½ lime
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
Mix ingredients together in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Guacamole
Active Time: 5 minutes
- 1 ripe avocado
- Juice of ½ lime
- 1-2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
- Large pinch of Kosher salt
In
a small bowl, mash avocado with a fork, then mix with other
ingredients. Serve immediately. To store for a few hours, press a piece
of plastic wrap down onto the surface of the guacamole and refrigerate.
![[SB10001424052970204456604574208031350660324]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-DU763_TruckF_D_20090604155702.jpg)
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