Linda’s Luncheonette just completed a successful Kickstarter and will be rolling out their gourmet comfort food to Montgomery County this spring/summer!  I’ll post another reminder when they’re just about to start serving

http://foodtruckfiesta.com/coming-soon-to-moco-lindas-luncheonette-lluncheonette/

David Cornblatt, Owner of Curley’s Q BBQ

 The enticing aroma hits you as soon as you get near the bright yellow Curley’s Q food truck. That’s because David Cornblatt believes in the art of low and slow smoking. His beef brisket, pork ribs and chicken go into the smoker 12 to 15 hours before they are served to his customers in downtown Silver Spring.

“Everything we do is authentically smoked, and I believe in that,” said Cornblatt, the owner of Curley’s Q BBQ. “It’s all done with just hardwood and charcoal. There’s no gas and no electricity. It’s very old-fashioned.”

Cornblatt began pursuing his passion in earnest last March. He owned a successful liquidation company for 20 years, but sold it to do what he loves. That is, making authentic barbecue and serving it with a side of good cheer.

“It’s really about affecting people in a positive way, putting smiles on people’s faces and having them forget about work for an hour,” said Cornblatt.

Jokes and laughter are part of the charm for customers lined up at Curley’s Q in the 8600 block of Colesville Road. The food truck usually parks near the front of the downtown Silver Spring post office on Thursdays. American music classics coming from the truck’s speakers keep patrons entertained.

During the warm months, customers can join in karaoke fun and follow lyrics on the truck’s video monitor. For the colder weather, Cornblatt added a text, grab and go service.

“I had heard of Curley’s BBQ from my co-workers, and I was very excited to try it today,” said Meghan Elliott, an Arlington resident and new customer.

Cornblatt grew up in Montgomery County. He started honing his barbecue skills at age 16 after giving his mom a smoker for Mother’s Day. He never made another gift mistake like that one, but the joy of cooking and smoking meats stayed with him.

“Everything we do has no sauce on it. I believe you should taste the meat, and then if you want, kick it up a notch with sauces,” Cornblatt added.

The smoked meats at Curley’s Q can be ordered as a sandwich, a plate or by the pound. There is a vinegar-based sauce called Love Potion #9 and a sweeter BBQ sauce with a little mustard added. You can also get a new horseradish sauce on the brisket or other sandwiches. Regular patrons are more than happy with the choices.

“It is my favorite, food truck or otherwise,” said Ashley David, a DC resident. “The brisket is so good. I’ve been coming back whenever he is here.”

John Walker is back for the third time. “I enjoy the ribs, primarily,” said the DC resident. “They are pretty much lean, and just have a wonderful taste to them.”

An Annapolis resident heard about Curley Q’s from his sister. Today, he is excited about trying a Preuben, a pulled pork sandwich with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and thousand island dressing.

“I go to a lot of good barbecue places, and I can honestly say by far this is the best,” said Garrett Davis, a Curley’s Q patron.

Cornblatt has created several specialty sandwiches to give his followers variety, including The Merkin, The Big Ed and The Glo-vina. There is even a veggie burger on the menu.

All solo and plate items come with a Kaiser roll, homemade coleslaw and a jalapeno pepper. You also get one side dish and a bag of chips with plate orders. Prices range from $8 to $25.

Curley’s Q is one of Washingtonian magazine’s favorite food trucks. Even Cornblatt’s ex-wife rates his barbecue as the best. However, he does not plan to pursue competition trophies to prove it.

“When I see my regulars come back, I realize I’m winning. As I see new customers show up, I realize that I’m successful in what I’m doing,” said Cornblatt.

Curley’s Q BBQ can be booked for fundraisers, corporate events and private parties, with or without the truck. You can track weekly stops on FoodTruckFiesta, Facebook and Twitter. The locations, menu and prices are also available on the food truck’s website.

Note: This is a food truck profile, not a review. Opinions expressed do not represent the ideas of the writer or Patch

http://colesville.patch.com/articles/bites-nearby-bbq-lovers-dine-on-bold-flavors-from-curley-s-q#photo-12150164

]]> http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/11/silver-spring-md-bites-nearby-bbq-lovers-fall-for-silver-springs-curleys-q/feed/ 0 http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2011/05/silver-spring-md-food-trucks-accelerate-pace/ http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2011/05/silver-spring-md-food-trucks-accelerate-pace/#comments Sat, 07 May 2011 16:21:53 +0000 MobileFoodNews.com http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/?p=12878 by Kristi Tousignant | Gazette.net

The mobile gourmet food business keeps on truckin’ in downtown Silver Spring and throughout the county.

The gourmet food truck trend continues to leak across Washington, D.C., lines into Montgomery County. The trucks started off as a trickle in Rockville and Silver Spring, with a few parking near the intersection of Colesville Road and Georgia Avenue. More food trucks have been showing up in the same place, organizing meet-ups with a couple of trucks via Twitter. More trucks are slated to hit the road this month.

Though more food trucks have been targeting Silver Spring, they are still working to gather a following and are not yet near the cult-like status of those in the District.

“There have been more trucks coming into Montgomery County,” said Shane Patterson, co-owner of Sub-Urban-Bros: The Great Sandwich Truck. “It’s not nearly the same as D.C. There are not as many people coming out, but it’s not bad. It’s getting better every day.”

There are 93 licensed food trucks in Montgomery County, county spokeswoman Mary Anderson said. As of last month, sandwich truck Sub-Urban-Bros. had been frequenting Silver Spring along with Tops American Food Company, which sells chili and hot dogs. The two have been working together on Colesville Road and organizing with new trucks. The trucks also travel throughout the county to hubs in Gaithersburg, Rockville and Olney.

Recently, they have been joined by cupcake truck DC Love Bites, which is based in Silver Spring. The truck sells many varieties of cupcakes, including everything from red velvet to lemon chiffon to their most popular sweet potato cupcake.The company has permits to sell in D.C. and Montgomery County.

“Food trucks are really new. Especially in D.C., they are coming out one after another,” DC Love Bites co-owner Tima Hawes said. “A lot are not branching into Montgomery County. That’s why we want to expand.”

Hawes founded the business with her mother and fiancee. So far, they have been targeting D.C. but have been stopping in Silver Spring once a week.

“We want to get into Silver Spring more often,” Hawes said. “Right now, we are focused around the [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] building and Discovery building, but we want to branch out to different areas.”

Go Fish!, a new seafood truck, will be making the rounds in the downtown Silver Spring area by the end of the month, said Missy Carr, who is with Go Fish!. The food truck has a dual mission, Carr said. It will sell ready-to-serve items during lunch hours, such as salmon burgers, crabcake sandwiches and salads with grilled shrimp. And in the evenings, it will park near Metro stations and sell marinated, ready-to-cook seafood items, Carr said. This way, people on their way home from work can grab dinner and cook it at home.

Carr said she has been talking to the Sub-Urban-Bros and Tops and is planning to meet up with them once they get the truck running. She said they are hoping to target high-occupancy office buildings like those in North Bethesda and Rockville.

“I think it seems like a group where people are welcoming,” Carr said. “I think it’s one of those things where we all need to work together. It seems like everyone is willing to do that. We all sell different products and draw a bunch of different people.”

Carr said that while she feels like Montgomery County is an untapped market, it will take some strategy for food trucks to succeed in the suburbs.

“I think the trick with Montgomery County is going to be trying to find a large number of people for a shorter period of time,” Carr said.

Carr said she plans to make stops in Silver Spring near the Discovery Communications building and meet up with other trucks on Colesville Road and Georgia Avenue. She said she thinks the key to success for food trucks in downtown Silver Spring is offering different food than the options already available.

“I think we will be OK in downtown Silver Spring,” Carr said. “There are a lot of shops and retail there. … There is a Metro station there, which is a good evening spot.”

Carmen’s Italian Ice & Cafe is also looking to move into Silver Spring. Owner Jason Mandler started the business around 10 years ago. It has a storefront in Rockville that sells Italian ice, gelato, coffee and frozen custard. It also has a fleet of ice cream carts throughout the county as well as two fully equipped trucks. One only sells iced desserts, which they just started using in August, and another, which they have been using for around six years, also sells hot dogs and a few hot items like pretzels and coffee, Mandler said.

“We have been doing the mobile stuff for awhile now, before it was hip as it is now,” Mandler said.

http://www.gazette.net/stories/05042011/silvnew195805_32542.php

William Lee of Washington picks up his sandwich order from Sub-Urban Bros: The Great Sandwich Truck co-owner Shane Patterson Friday in Silver Spring. Sub-Urban-Bros and Tops American Food Company are two new food trucks that have popped up this month in downtown Silver Spring. Christopher Anderson/The Gazette

On your mark. Get set. Eat!

Food trucks, which have become common lunch stops in Washington, D.C., have started to branch out in Montgomery County.

Several new food truck businesses have been sighted around downtown Silver Spring this month, including Tops American Food Company and Sub-Urban-Bros: The Great Sandwich Truck. Each has been on the road for only a few weeks, but both have already been making regular stops near the intersection of Wayne Avenue and Colesville Road.

“We are going to get our feet wet,” said Rick Baldwin, co-owner of Sub-Urban-Bros, said. “There is so much to offer in Montgomery County.”

Bright, colorful food trucks with gourmet and comfort foods are one of the food industry’s growing trends. They have long been popular in big cities like New York and Los Angeles and began multiplying in Washington, D.C., in recent years, and now they are growing in the suburbs as well. They even combine quick food with new age social networking, tweeting their locations on Twitter so that loyal followers track them down.

Now trucks selling anything from pizza to cupcakes to lobster rolls patrol the streets, and entrepreneurs are hoping to cash in.

“What I don’t know is if this is a fad,” said Joe Walker, co-owner of Tops. “That’s where the calculated risk is.”

Sub-Urban-Bros has 173 followers on Twitter thus far, while Tops has 95.

However, the spread of food trucks into Montgomery County has been slowed down by strict county restrictions on mobile food service units. Each food truck is required to have a stationary kitchen in the county in addition to the truck, a requirement not common in other places.

Those setting up food trucks that change locations throughout the county also have to get permits from both the Department of Permitting Services and the Department of Health and Human Services, said Susan Scala-Demby, zoning manager at the Department of Permitting Services.

To get the permit from Permitting Services, food truck owners must pay a $295 one-year license fee, a photo ID fee of $38, an application fee of $38, and a $37 automation fee, Scala-Demby said. This permit only allows food vendors to park on the street, not in parking lots or on private property.

“The reason there are not many food trucks in Montgomery County could be that people don’t have enough money to pay for all the licenses,” co-owner of Sub-Urban-Bros Shane Patterson said.

Food truck owners also have to get a permit from the county health department, which is a $395 annual fee, said Kevin Chinnia, manager of the environmental inspection unit with the health department.

Food truck businesses also have to have a base of operation, Chinnia said. These places have to be licensed food service facilities.

The health department requires that a mobile service unit has cool running water, portable water tank, hot water tank and a wastewater tank, Chinnia said. They need refrigeration to keep cool foods at 41 degrees and steam tables to keep hot foods at 135 degrees. If they are cooking food, trucks have to have cooking equipment like a stove range, ventilation system and grease vents.

Chinnia said his department has noticed a steady increase in food trucks over the last two years. He said his department has heard increased complaints from established restaurants about food trucks parking in front of their businesses.

“You see them more and more all over the place,” Chinnia said. “You used to see just ice cream trucks in the summer. Now, you have these really restaurants on wheels. It’s hard to keep track of them. It is quite a challenge.”

Tops and Sub-Urban-Bros are among the first new food truck businesses to make their way into Silver Spring. Tops sells chili, fries, sausages, hot dogs and chili dogs. Sub-Urban-Bros sells sub sandwiches and soups. Both said obtaining all the county permits was time-consuming and expensive.

Start-up costs for a food truck business could cost anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000. With these upfront costs, Walker said he and his partner at Tops had planned not to profit for six months, but, Walker said they have been doing well so far, and if it continues, he said he expects to start profiting earlier.

“This is just kind of a phenomenon,” Walker said. “We like the business model of it. It makes it so much easier to set up.”

Patterson said he and Baldwin needed around $100,000 to start their food truck business. The custom-made truck alone cost $75,000, he said. Baldwin and Patterson set off the costs of maintaining their mandatory base kitchen by renting it out to other catering companies.

For the food truck business, Montgomery County is still largely uncharted territory, and businesses are still mapping out their strategies. Tops has only been operating several days a week but plans to expand into six days a week, Walker said. The Bros said they have only been working a few days a week, too, getting the feel for the new business.

“We like Silver Spring,” Walker said. “We like the density, and it’s the closest thing to a city feel.”

Baldwin and Patterson had each been working in the food industry for decades. Baldwin bartended and was the manager at Clyde’s in Rockville for a time. Paterson was a bartender in Olney for many years. They ordered a customized truck in October, and the designer painted colorful sandwiches and caricatures of the two owners across the sides of the truck.

They got the truck in December, but just began driving around two weeks ago. They have been making the rounds in Olney, Rockville and Gaithersburg, as well. They sell a variety of soups and subs, including a meatball one from Baldwin’s wife’s recipe and a veggie one of Baldwin’s creation.

“That’s our line, bringing sandwiches to the people,” Baldwin said.

The Bros have their base kitchen in Rockville. They get there around 8 a.m. in the morning, where they slice the deli meats, cook the vegetables and prepare their meatballs. Around 10:45 a.m., they begin looking for spots to park and sell. They can park in any public parking space as long as it’s along a two-lane road, Baldwin said.

Walker started Tops with his best friend last year. After coming across a particularly appealing chili recipe, they decided starting a food truck would be easier and cheaper than opening a stationary restaurant.

For now, Tops is a business on the side for Walker. He works in finance, but hopes to give that up once the food truck starts to boom. Walker said they plan to eventually expand into a fleet of seven or eight trucks.

“I have never had more fun than when I stand in that window,” Walker said.

Jordan Johnson of Silver Spring ate a bowl of soup from Sub-Urban-Bros Friday while waiting for his toasted sandwich. He had heard about the sub truck trolling through Silver Spring and had been following them on Twitter. When he saw they were parked on Colesville Road, he decided he would stop by while running some errands.

“[Food trucks] are new,” Johnson said. “They are novel. Everyone is talking about them. They also feel a little bit more personal.”

Whether more trucks will be revving up business and moving into the county remains to be seen.

“This is completely the Wild West at this point,” Walker said.

http://www.gazette.net/stories/03302011/wheanew213742_32543.php