Food Truck Surpasses
Best Restaurants, Gets Five Stars
A few months ago I crashed a seminar for people who operate restaurants. I don't, but a friend who does had very expensive, non-refundable tickets to the event. A major last-minute problem kept him from going. I look enough like him that if I shaved my beard took off my glasses his ID let me pass.
I took away three conclusions from this meeting. First, if you want to really make money, give seminars, don't run restaurants. Second, I would not want to be a customer in any restaurant using the system put forth in this seminar.
Third and most interesting was a conversation I overheard during one of the dinners. A man sitting at the same table of eight is I did proclaimed that the biggest thing in the food service world during the next twenty or more years will be food trucks and other portable restaurants.
"Think about the food truck business model," he said. "You spend zero on atmosphere and service. The food can be the cheapest, easiest kind. People show up at food trucks predisposed not only to to like them, but to expect very, very little from the food. It's unbelievable what you can get away with. The more spartan it is--the junkier, smellier, and dirtier--the more people like it."
"Not everybody is a sucker for obvious foolishness," I said.
He pointed at me and said, "You're right! But here's what you don't know. If you make the food cheap enough, the people who eat from food trucks learn stupidity! After which they question nothing! All they can think about is how big and cheap the sloppy joe you served them was. And if you ask them about it, they say it's the best sloppy joe they ever had, even when it obviously is not! They fall under the spell of the price, because it's the only filling meal they've had for under two dollars in a long time. They don't know--and don't want to know--that it cost you about ten cents to make! All they want to do is stand in a line two or three dozen deep to get 'the best sloppy joe in town.'"
"So what, you're selling franchises?" I asked.
"Hell, no! I'm buying all the food trucks I can!"
The more I heard of this, the less I wanted to know. Fortunately, the dinner was ending, and I escaped this man's bad vibrations. Forever, I thought.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Dinner Le Foret. The Baron of Food Trucks was at the next table. He saw me and came over. "How's the food truck empire?" I asked.
He laughed. "New Orleans is the place to be. It's just getting started. People like funky, sleazy places even more than in the rest of the country. I'm up to thirty-eight units here. Everything is going just like I told you at that bulls*** seminar. Only one surprise. A few of the food trucks here are actually good, with real chefs with real food and realistic prices. So I've had to turn up the volume to make my idea work."
"New Orleans works by different rules," I told him proudly.
"Not completely," he said. "Getting their attention is just a little harder. Hey, Saturday I'm showing a few investors my new concept. It's called the Food Vehicle Parade. I'd explain it but you've got to see it. Can you make it to the corner of Mazant and Decatur noon Saturday? Here's my card."
Jack Smythe. Offices in New York, Bangkok, Naples, and New Orleans.
"I'll be there," I said. And then I wondered if I was about to be rendered stupid.
It was a chilly, lightly drizzly day. On the sidewlk was a group of people I would guess to be about fifty strong, standing on the sidewalk in a mass, like a parade crowd. In the street was what looked like a cement mixer, but smaller. Smythe saw me, waved me over, and handed me a deep styrofoam cup with a long plastic spoon, filled with a dark-roux something.
"Duck-andouille gumbo," he said. "Eat."
I ate. Quite good, my palate reported. No, wait. That was really good. Maybe. . . no, definitely. The best gumbo I've ever eaten. And I've had more than a few. I ate all of it, a serving twice the size of the next largest I could think of. Generous chunks of duck meat, and andouille full of chunky, smoky, spicy pork.
Price? "A dollar fifty-nine," said Smythe. "Sixteen fluid ounces. Serving two. And if you eat a whole one while the truck is still here, we'll give you another serving free!"
Impressive, I said. But what function does the cement mixer perform?
"Oh, you missed it! That's where we cook it!" He turned to a man standing next to the truck. "Gibby! Give me a gallon for this man!" Gibby lowered the chute from the top of the truck-mounted, rotating mixer. A dark-brown, thick liquid began to slide down a stainless steel chute into the waiting gallon container. Big discs of sausage sliced down in a slow-moving flow. The people on the sidewalk began to cheer, form a line to buy some gumbo, and stare at the apparatus.
Nobody was more ecstatic than Smythe. His employees kept pumping the gumbo down the chute until the mixer was empty. That only took about fifteen minutes. Then Gibby shot a hose with hot, soapy water into a door in the side of the rotating drum. He speeded up the revolution, then unloaded the contents into a drainage catchbasin. He followed that with a flood of rinse water. Amazing!
Smythe started talking again. "What I can't show you yet--because we haven't patented it--is how we cook the gumbo, roux and all, in the drum. We can cook it while the truck is moving! A full load takes from here to Laplace and back."
Incredible. I turned toward my car and home to eat more of this addictively fantastic gumbo.
"Where you going?" he said. "That's just the first unit in the parade. You'll love what's next. Look!"
He pointed up Decatur. All I saw was a group of three homeless people, pushing shopping carts our way. They lined up in single file at the street curb. Two of the pushers grabbed aluminum foil trays and converged on the center cart, which carried something creating a billow of smoke. Soon all three carts had fire coming up from the bottom, licking the bottom of the cart.
"I've heard you say you like charcoal grilling," said Smythe. "Prepare yourself for the finest sixteen-ounce filet mignon you have ever eaten," said Smythe. "Price, four dollars. Roasted at 1200 degrees in a shopping cart guaranteed to have no plastic components."
Ten minutes later, I had a plastic plate with a tall, crusty, juicy steak, sizzling in garlic butter, with sides of grilled asparagus, potatoes au gratin, and bearnaise or cream peppercorn sauces. The steaks occupied the main part of the cart, while the sides were all cooked in ingenious fold-out racks inside the carts.
Astounding enough already, this meal became incredible with the first (and every subsequent) bite of the new best steak in town. Stand back, Mr. John's. Out of the way, Ruth's Chris. Make room for the grocery cart-grilled prime, aged steak, available with nothing extra paid for atmosphere or service. No tipping. Bring your own wine, chair, napkin, or anything else.
Smythe told me later that he sold fifty-eight steaks from his carts this afternoon. Not counting the free seconds he offers to anyone who asks. But what could his net profit be? He laughed. "Don't be surprised when I pick up a lot of restaurant property at fire sale prices in the next few years. The street meal is soon to make the traditional restaurant obsolete!"
I spent the next four hours without moving from this corner. A fleet of Segways rolled up with cold cuts, cheese, and muffuletta loaves. By flipping one of the Segways upside down, it became a meat slicer, so everything was freshly carved. A tricycle made olive salad (don't ask; I'm not sure I understood, myself.) Best muffuletta in town, $1.75. Four quarters not enough? A fifth fourth of the muff free fixes that problem.
I could not resist the appeal of all this simply-cooked food in such staggering quantities at such unheard-of prices. I was falling for it. And then a young man pulled a Radio Flyer wagon onto the sidewalk. It couldn't have been part of Smythe's parade, I thought. But it was. The smallest food truck in town, the same kind of wagon I had when I was six years old. Turned into a cheese cart. The best cheeses from all over the world, at least fifty of them, each one served at ideal ripeness, with an assortment of two dozen different crackers and breads.
The young man folded out a complex rack inside his little boy's wagon. He cut pieces of cheese and placed them on squares of waxed paper in the wagon. He refilled the cracker dishes as necessary, smiling all the while, singing Elton John songs, clearly happy.
"How much?" I asked him.
Smythe pulled me aside. "Whatever you want to pay," he said. "Don't worry about feeling guilt. I get all the money, not this young man. He is between jobs and needs something to build up his resume. He pulls the cheese wagon around for free. These are damn good cheeses. The best. Take all you want. It's just my way of saying thanks, New Orleans!"
I looked at the smiling young man as he sliced a chunk of Mrs. Montgomery's Cheddar. Something in me snapped. This was not right. Sometimes it doesn't matter how good the food is, what a great deal the price is, and how hip it is to eat in the gutter of a back street instead of in a comfortable, civilized restaurant.
I wheeled around and doused Smythe with my gallon of his gumbo. He came for me, but slipped on an andouille and fell to the pavement.
I ran, but the battle is not over. I will fight this with every ounce of strength I have. If I can resist coming back for the gumbo and the steak.
The Food Vehicle Parade
Begins at noon on the first Thursday, third Tuesday, and last Saturday at (respectively) the corner of Willow at Cherokee, corner of Harrison Avenue and Wuerpel, and corner Decatur and Mazant. Cash only. No bills over $5 accepted.
