The Front Range Rally will highlight local craft breweries and food trucks all the while raising money for the Food Bank for Larimer County.

Thirty plus breweries highlighting more than 100 beers and 15 food trucks will be part of the Front Range Rally. Grimm Brothers Brewhouse is the event’s organizer. Paul Ferguson, Grimm Brothers’ Marketing Director, says the rally developed organically considering that craft beers and food trucks are such a natural pairing in Northern Colorado.

Grimm Brothers approached the Food Bank for Larimer County with the partnership proposal. Lauren Mingus a spokeswoman for the food bank says they jumped at the opportunity.

“It’s a very unique partnership. We are hoping it’s going to translate well. Some people might think it’s kind of a strange pairing but it’s kind of the culture of northern Colorado. The food trucks and the craft beers are kind of a signature of our community. And so we look forward to it being a great partnership and a great way to raise awareness and funds for the food bank,” said Mingus.

Attendance will be capped at 1,500 Saturday, May 18 at the Loveland Food Share. If all goes well they plan to make the rally an annual event.

Tickets range from $33-$44 with the net proceeds benefiting the Food Bank for Larimer County.

See the pour list [.pdf] for all participating breweries and their beers.

http://www.kunc.org/post/two-faves-craft-beer-and-food-trucks-support-noco-food-bank

Although the food court in the Lory Student Center will be closed during renovations, students won’t be left hungry on campus.

To replace the food court, Lory Dining Services will relocate some businesses, but the rest will be replaced with food trucks parked on campus.

“It is important to provide alternative eating locations,” said Joyce Durol, associate director of Lory Dining Services. “That’s what started the food truck idea. They wanted to come on before so we were all excited. This gives additional food options because we are severely affected by the renovations.”

So far, there are five trucks participating that offer a variety of cuisines including hot dogs, hamburgers, soft-serve frozen fruit, Asian-fused meals, Italian sandwiches and breakfast dishes.

“We initially made contact with two trucks, and word got out (about what we were doing) and that is how we got to five,” Durol said. “(The food trucks) are like a subculture, so they will work to offer different things. It won’t be your average lunch fare.”

The trucks will be parked on South Pitkin Street in the Education Building’s parking lot. According to Durol, the Dining Services is working on getting tables and chairs to the parking lot to create a nice environment for the students to eat in.

One of the important factors with the food trucks is that they can operate separate of the university.

“What I like is that they are small entities,” Durol said. “they all are self contained units; they just pull up, work their day, and leave later because they will have obligations in Fort Collins.”

All of the food trucks that will come on campus currently operate around the Fort Collins community, but they are not in a permenant spot. Once at CSU, the trucks will be committed to a set Monday through Friday schedule.

As of now they will only accept credit, debit and cash. However, Dining Services is working on tapping into the university network to allow the trucks to take RamCash, said Durol.

Though the food court is closed, not all resturants will be shut down.

Subway and Spoons will both be down-sized to kiosks in Clark A.

For Spoons, they will be going from seven employees to only two or three. According to Spoons employee Rebecca Carleson, those who work there are not excited about the downsize, but they will be able to work at another Spoons location.

“(This move) will probably cut business in half, maybe a quarter,” Carleson said. “We are hoping that won’t happen, but we are also preparing that it will.”

“I feel like everything will pan out, but until then I am nervous,” added Carleson.

Bagel Place 2 will be one of the restaurants to stay open in the LSC. Due to the renovations, BP2 will be taking in the employees from Bagel Place 1, as well as expanding their hours.

“I think we wil have a lot more business because we will be next to the temporary RamSkeller, so we will have more traffic and people will know we are here,” Bree Ziola, a BP2 employee said. “I am definitely glad that BP2 is staying open. I love working there and I am glad I get to meet more people who work there.”

Once the student center is finished being renovated, the food trucks will be replaced with the food court inside the LSC.

“(The food truck owners) are extremely excited, and they know that (they will stay on campus) only a year,” Durol said. “But they are hoping they can get some loyalty customers from the process.”

http://www.collegian.com/2013/05/10/food-trucks-to-replace-lsc-food-court/

A hot dog and fries from Common-Link, one of the many food trucks that has popped up all around Fort Collins. Colorado State University alumna Jesse Doerffel and her husband Derrick Smith own the food truck and only use locally sourced ingredients.

While playing outside, you’d hear the faint lilt of the iconic song approaching and your heart would immediately leap to your throat.

An ice cream truck was near.

“Mom!” you’d shout while desperately foraging through your pockets for change. “Mom! Mom I need some money for ice cream quick, pleeease!”

Hopefully you would get the cash in time, and then you’d sprint down the street to order a Spiderman-shaped popsicle — even though it usually tasted bad and looked more like Spiderblob.

But none of that mattered because you just ordered something out of a truck, and somehow that made it indescribably magical.

It may have been a while since any of us have ran after an ice cream truck, but the appeal of food being served out of something with wheels is still ingrained within us.

Thankfully, the food truck trend has increased over the past decade, popping up in cities like our own Fort Collins, and it seems that more tasty trucks are rolling in every month.

The wide variety of cuisine being cooked up will satisfy whatever you feel like eating this weekend, so keep a lookout for these mobile eateries roaming around town.

The Waffle Lab

The cure for cancer probably won’t be cooked up in this “lab” any time soon — unless, that cure happens to be incredibly delicious and unique waffles.

“I came out to Fort Collins and decided I wanted to introduce people here to the deliciousness of gourmet Liège waffles and waffle combinations, which I had experienced in the Northwest,” said owner Bill Almquist.

Liège waffles, for those who don’t happen to be fluent in waffle language, are a type of Belgium waffle that are sweeter, denser and chewier than the average waffle. One bite of a freshly made Liège from the Waffle Lab, and you’ll never want to look at an Eggo again.

Bite Insight: The “Mild High” Grilled Cheese is cheddar and swiss cheese melted between two crispy waffle halves. Waffles and cheese? Yes please.

Common-Link

With a slogan like “Enjoy every sausage … one savory link at a time,” can you really go wrong?

Colorado State University alumna Jesse Doerffel and her husband Derrick Smith first fell in love with food trucks during their travels in Los Angeles, so they decided to channel that love into their own four-month-old Common-Link.

Dourffel and Smith serve only nitrate-free, locally sourced ingredients on their menu, which includes a mac and cheese stuffed hot dog.

Bite Insight: The side dish “poutine,” which for you non-Canadians is fresh-cut Belgium fries topped with cheese curds and homemade gravy. It’s one of those things you just have to try to appreciate.

Umami Mobile Eatery

The Japanese word “umami” refers to the fifth taste in the taste spectrum, and it translates to “savory” or “delicious” flavor. It’s fun to say, so certainly “umami” food must be fun to eat.

Umami Mobile Eatery’s owner Martin opened his truck in June of last year, and he’s been using his culinary school-trained skills to serve up fresh Asian cuisine to hungry Fort Collins residents ever since.

Martin says his favorite parts of the job are, “Working with my sexy girlfriend, being my own boss, creating something from scratch and drinking awesome beer.” Now that’s a happy man.

Bite Insight: In addition to their “Num Num Dumplings” and “Thai Nachos,” a popular item at Umami is the “Dan Bahn Mi” Vietnamese sandwich, which is sauteed lemon grass chicken on a French Baguette, filled with pickled daikon radish and carrots, topped with sriracha mayo and cilantro.

Dam Good Tacos

Sometimes, the name says it all.

Owner Mike Falco opened Dam Good Tacos in Fort Collins about two months ago after receiving a wave of positive feedback for his gourmet taco truck in Basalt, Colo.

“My favorite part of this work is being able to see a person’s face after they have had an authentic American taco experience,” Falco said. “I am truly a people person and this is the ultimate people person business: selling street food.”

Bite Insight: Falco’s favorite is the menu’s “Mystery Taco,” which is a combination of whatever fresh ingredients he happens to have on-hand. A recent taco combination had slow roasted chicken and pork with a five-pepper salsa, a double-onion jalapeno garlic pico de gallo, topped with tomatillo, avocado puree and chipotle honey puree. It’s no “mystery” that it sounds delicious.

http://www.collegian.com/2013/04/26/fort-collins-food-trucks-cruise-with-great-cuisine/

Jessica Doerffel and Derrick Smith have brought Common-Link, a mobile food vendor specializing in hand-cut fries and sausage, to Fort Collins. / Photo courtesy of Gretchen Gerding, CSU

Jessica Doerffel and Derrick Smith cooked with the finest chefs and helped run the ritziest hotels in America as they hopscotched the West for seven years.

Now the couple is ready to plant roots in Fort Collins, the place Doerffel felt most at home.

They left jobs at The Brown Palace Hotel and ELWAY’S in The Ritz Carlton in Denver to follow their dream of opening a place of their own, starting a family and becoming part of a community.

“This has always felt like home,” said Doerffel, a 2006 CSU graduate with a degree in restaurant and resort management. After living in 18 cities as a kid and young adult, Doerffel said she and Smith compared every place they went to Fort Collins. “This is home. It’s the best,” she said.

Following a three-week stint at the National Western Stock Show, they brought Common-Link, a bright green, gnome-covered truck, to Fort Collins where it joined a growing number of mobile food vendors scattered throughout Old Town.

Their trademark gnomes remind the couple “not to take ourselves too seriously.”

Common-Link specializes in Belgian fries hand-cut from Kennebec potatoes, poutine, exotic sausages made from a variety of meats such as rabbit and antelope, buffalo brats, and Berkshire hot dogs from Denver-based Tender Belly. They’re partnering with local breweries to pair beers with their food.

Their poutine — fries topped with gravy and cheese curds from Cozy Cow in Windsor — include beef gravy and steak; chicken gravy and pulled chicken; and a sweet and spicy chili-glazed pork belly.

Though it might not be considered the healthiest of foods, Doerffel said poutines are “a nice comfort dish that pair perfectly with beer.”

She counts retired CSU professor Ken Smith, Steve Taylor of Hot Corner Concepts, and Egg and I owner Rayno Seaser among her mentors.

“She did everything right,” said Seaser, who first noticed Doerffel as a college student involved with the Colorado Restaurant Association’s student chapter.

Ken Smith said he invested in Common-Link not only because of the food and his fondness for Doerffel, but also to take advantage of Fort Collins’ growing food truck trend.

“I talked for 20 years about trends, and it was one that fell into my lap. Fort Collins is not inundated with food trucks. We only have a couple,” said Ken Smith, who retired from CSU last year. “I thought the design of this specially made truck from California with beautiful graphics would take the food truck to a new level.”

The food is a perfect match with Fort Collins’ microbrew mentality, Smith said. “What’s better than beer and brats, pork belly brats, 90 Shilling brats, poutine? I know we all should be eating more healthy, but a pork belly hot dog doesn’t come along every day.”

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20130206/BUSINESS/302060049/New-Fort-Collins-food-truck-serves-up-brats-poutine?nclick_check=1

Responding to community input, city expands opportunities for mobile food vendors

Where to go for lunch has traditionally been a question reserved for diners. Now, proprietors of mobile food vending trucks are wondering the same thing.

New city regulations now in effect for outdoor vendors enable food trucks, pushcarts and other businesses on wheels to move about town. Previously, they had been confined to a single location, and public rights of way (parking places and public lots) were off-limits.

The rule change establishes three pockets where hungry folks will find regular food truck activity in public lots. It also opens the door for groups of vendors to operate on private lots and folds nonfood vendors — think pedicabs and seasonal pumpkin peddlers — into the regulatory framework.

Fort Collins City Council chose not to adopt the 200-foot boundary between mobile food vendors and brick-and-mortar restaurants that city staff had recommended at the urging of the Downtown Business Association and existing restaurants.

“With my discussion with the outdoor vendors, this was problematic to them,” said Councilwoman Aislinn Kottwitz, explaining her opposition to the proposed boundary. “You look at the map, it does exclude pretty much all of Downtown Fort Collins or Old Town Fort Collins. They’re definitely on the fringes.”

Expansion of where food trucks can set up shop will not encroach on the personal space of restaurants on College Avenue in Old Town. While the new rules allow food trucks to park in parallel parking spots, they forbid operating in diagonally oriented parking spaces, which line College Avenue.

“Potentially Mason, Howes, any side streets where there’s parallel parking, you could see mobile food trucks and carts,” said Jessica Ping-Small, sales tax manager for the city of Fort Collins. “A mobile food truck will be allowed to be as close as they want to an existing restaurant, however they would still have to be in a parallel spot, so it protects that downtown area.”

Six pushcarts currently doing business in Old Town operate on concession agreements. Two more of those slots are currently unoccupied. The concession agreements cost $120 annually (the same price as a mobile vendor license) plus a cleaning fee and allow holders to stake out a spot on the sidewalk on College Avenue.

City staff took cues from a community survey and other Front Range cities to develop recommendations to council, including the boundary proposal that was rejected.

The average boundary between brick-and-mortar restaurants and mobile vendors on the Front Range is 200-300 feet, Pete Wray, senior city planner, told council. He emphasized the Downtown Business Association’s support for the buffer.

“In part that response was due to some restaurant owners concerned about unfair competition and impacts in direct proximity to front entrances of restaurants,” Wray said.

One of those business owners, Jake Fitzsimmons of Stuft Burger Bar, elaborated on those concerns in the city’s outdoor vendor study conducted last fall. He said stationary businesses like his hold their ground during peak business times and lean ones, whereas mobile vendors swoop in opportunistically to the detriment of their walled-in competition.

“Food carts and street vendors can cherry pick our prime time of year and detract to the overall experience that is downtown,” Fitzsimmons wrote in response to the city survey. “A hot new restaurant or cool new boutique can draw traffic to downtown collectively benefitting everyone. A food truck or cart simply poaches customers …”

The competition concern expressed by its members led the Downtown Business Association to support the proposed boundary, according to Peggy Lyle, assistant director of the association.

“I think that’s still what we’re in support of,” she said. “We’re also in support of activities that enhance the vitality of our downtown, and mobile food vendors are a part of that vibrancy.”

Respondents to the survey, 78 percent of whom self-identified as interested citizens with no dog in the mobile-versus-mortar fight, welcomed expanded opportunities for vendors on the move.

Eighty-three percent favored expanding the rules to allow vending in multiple locations. Those favoring a 200-foot boundary were outnumbered more than three to one. Among food truck vendors, the ability to operate on public streets and lots topped the wish list on the survey.

“One thing to remember is if street vendors aren’t allowed in Ft. Collins public streets, etc. the vendors (like myself) will find another city to operate,” Mary Riddell, owner of Go Go Snow Shack, imparted in written correspondence to the city during the survey.

Council listened and granted many of the preferences expressed in the study.

The city is in the process of accepting bids for the three public lots that it has designated as food truck sites. Three vendors will occupy the lot at the former Poudre Valley Creamery site, 222 LaPorte Ave., from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after bids have been awarded.

One vendor each will be allowed to operate at city-owned lots at 215 N. Mason St. (near City Hall) and at the corner of Matthews and Olive streets (near Old Town Library).

Ping-Small said the city wants to gauge how much interest its new approach to vendors generates, and it hopes the multivendor site it has put out to bid will serve as a yardstick.

Vendors traditionally have been allowed to occupy private lots with the owner’s permission, and the new regulations build on that by creating a special vending license for businesses with private lots. Car dealerships and breweries, for instance, could host up to eight vendors up to four times a year for events on their property.

“Now we could allow the community to hold those private events and have multiple vendors on their location in a temporary basis, which the land-use code did not allow for,” Ping-Small said.

Special vending licenses also were created for miscellaneous goods and services (Christmas tree, pumpkin and jewelry stands and pedicabs, conference bikes) and those operating in residential neighborhoods.

“These are really your ice cream trucks and such,” Ping-Small said.

The new class of license allows vendors to operate between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. and prohibits them from staying put in one place for more than 15 minutes. The community survey expressed a distaste for an overabundance of food trucks in residential neighborhoods.

“That’s why we really wanted to limit it to vendors preparing food in commissaries,” Ping-Small said, “so they won’t be rolling restaurants through neighborhoods.”

Despite the handful of new rules, the city’s oversight of food trucks and pushcarts in general became less restrictive. As Kottwitz pointed out to her fellow council members, that’s what vendors sought from the start and the community survey supported them.

“I think if we’re going to give them a fair shot, then let’s give them a fair shot,” she said.

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20120812/NEWS01/308130001/An-open-road-food-move?nclick_check=1