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From the Paris of the Midwest to the New Orleans of the North: Detroit is getting a taste of the Bayou with Beignets.

After many years of travelling to the Big Easy and enjoying late-night beignets with chicory coffee at the famous Café du Monde, Michele Pearson and her partner Mark Hausner launched Beignets to bring the dense French doughnut to Detroit. “We just loved the fact that when people were together eating beignets all hours of the night, listening to zydeco, they were happy,” says Pearson. “We figured with the French influence in Detroit, why doesn’t Detroit have something like this?”

They started introducing Beignets to Detroit with a food truck currently operating Saturdays at Eastern Market and at various food truck meet-ups. “From the warm welcome we’ve been getting from the beignet truck, the opportunity presented itself (to open a store) in Hamtramck, where both myself and (Hausner) have roots,” says Pearson, who is also an interior designer and owns the Yoga Suite in Hamtramck. “We want to do what we can to bring business to Hamtramck.”

Beignets will be located on Joseph Campau next to the soon-to-open Flavor Restaurant. The two businesses are open to each other through their shared wall, and will also share a kitchen.

Beignets will serve the namesake pastry as well as chicory coffee (another New Orleans specialty) and regular coffee. The café will be open both early morning and late evening hours to capture some of the nightlife crowd. It will seat 30-40 people with free WiFi, and also has an outdoor patio out back where there will be more café seating and live music during the spring and summer.

Renovations are underway inside and Beignets will open by early summer. The truck will continue to operate at local events and farmers markets.

Source: Michele Pearson, co-owner of Beignets

http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/beignetsopeninginhamtramck.aspx

The Green Zebra food truck will be at the Deck Art celebration in Rochester this spring. Credit Judy Davids

The food trucks are coming.

Three mobile restaurant trucks – serving everything from fried pickles to tacos to soups and sandwiches – will be a featured attraction of the upcoming Deck Art festival in downtown Rochester.

The event is planned for May 16-17 and includes a gallery crawl from downtown business to downtown business to see skateboard decks that will be transformed into works of art.

The food trucks, which are popular in Ferndale, Royal Oak, Troy and other Oakland County cities, are one of several extra attractions planned for the weekend. They’ll be parked on East Fourth Street between Main Street and the alley.

Here are the trucks that have been invited to participate during the Deck Art event:

Green Zebra Truck: Yep, this truck is green, and it serves up soups, salads and sandwiches. You can usually find it in Birmingham, Royal Oak and outside Comerica Park, among other spots. For a menu, visit www.eatgreenzebra.com

Concrete Cuisine: The appetizer menu for this truck includes “Frickles” (i.e. fried dill pickles). Also offered: chicken strips, falafel and tabbouleh on pita bread and more. Visit concretecuisine.com.

El Guapo: Fresh Mexican selections include burritos and tacos; this truck is billed as the “first licensed and accepted Detroit food truck in the city’s history,” according to its website, www.elguapogrill.com.

http://rochester.patch.com/articles/food-trucks-will-make-a-stop-this-spring-in-downtown-rochester#photo-10977311

 The Dago JoeMobile will be serving up an amazing menu of all natural, bold, delicious gourmet Italian food directly from our truck to your mouth. Find out where we are (calender) and get some incredible food and go enjoy it somewhere or take it back to your office. Make sure you grab lots of napkins, because you’re going to start eating it while you’re walking and that can get messy and sh&$!  Give us a review at yelp, foursquare, or your favorite review site!  Like us on Facebook and stay in touch!  Follow us on twitter @dagojoes for the latest!  Join and become a “Family Member” for insider-only kinda stuff. Get your ass down here!!

Mobile Food

All gourmet.  All Original.  All Natural.  All right!  What are you waiting for!  This is some bad-ass, full flavored homemade italian mobile food from our truck to your mouth via the street, your business, event, or party, wherever we can fit.  Cater your party with the JoeMobile mobile food truck.

Where are we today?  For those of you that want to know, go home.  For our monthly calendar and map, click here.

Dago Joe’s goal is to make the best tasting and healthiest food possible, using only the finest indredients.  Unlike a music album that has one good song and the rest filler, our food promises to deliver all hits!

Look, we’re working really hard to serve you the very best in Old School Gourmet, as you can see by the picture to your left.

Street diners can choose from a number of Italian plates and flavorful, fresh sauces including a fat-free Lush Sauce, which is similar to marinara but much bolder and full of flavor, and the famous Racy Olive Sauce, a spicy, rich, bold low-fat tomato sauce with kalamata and manzanilla olives.

Yes, we have vegetarian dishes!

Find out where in the Detroit area you can find the JoeMobile.  This is street food truly at its best. It’s the only mobile food cart we know of its kind serving up fresh Italian food in the Detroit area.

See Our Motown Lunch Menu!

 http://www.dagojoes.com/food-truck.html

]]> http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/12/detroit-mi-food-truck-the-dago-joemobile/feed/ 0 http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/11/detroit-mi-best-food-trucks-in-and-around-detroit-area/ http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/11/detroit-mi-best-food-trucks-in-and-around-detroit-area/#comments Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:10:23 +0000 MFN Editor #1 http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/?p=31559 By Contributor | ClickOnDetroit.com

El Guapo Mexican Grill
From Pork Belly Confit to Sweet Potato Burritos, El Guapo says they’re bringing new tastes and a new attitude to Detroit.

 DETROIT – On the go or looking to try something new for lunch?  Stop by or contact one of the top voted best food trucks across Detroit.

Whether it’s Mexican or Italian cuisine you’re in the mood for, voters have chosen their favorite food trucks in the Detroit area.

VOTE 4 THE BEST:2012 Winners of best food trucks around Detroit

Concrete Cuisine

On the road and ready to serve “Fresh eats on the streets” is Concrete Cuisine, a fully licensed gourmet food truck that says is available for numerous events.

Concrete Cuisine, which placed first in this year’s Vote 4 The Best contest, was started up by Jeff and Justin, who have nearly thirty years of combined experience in the food and beverage industry.

Diane says everything she’d tried there has been great.

“The Frickles are a real treat,” said Diane. “Tasty, generous portions and reasonably priced makes Concrete Cuisine a must.”

To learn more about Concrete Cuisine and for contact information, click here.

Dago Joe’s

Also on the go is Dago Joe’s, a Detroit area based gourmet Italian food maker.  This local food truck placed second in the Vote 4 The Best contest.

Dago Joe’s says their passion for quality food starts at the heart of Italian food, the sauce.  Local 4 viewers like Kim say there is no sauce like theirs and others say their ravioli is the best.

“I love the racy olive sauce,” said Bob. “Stuff shells are perfect.”

Click here for Dago Joe’s phone number, deals and to visit their website.

El Guapo Grill

If you’re in the mood for Mexican food, El Guapo Grill says they are taking fresh Mexican to the streets as they place third on the list of best food trucks in Detroit.

El Guapo says it is the first licensed and accepted food truck in the City of Detroit’s history, with locations all across the city, including in Greektown, Midtown, and Eastern Market. From Pork Belly Confit to Sweet Potato Burritos, El Guapo says they’re bringing new tastes and a new attitude to the city.

“I love eating here during my lunch break,” said Angie, who recommends El Gaupo Grill. “It’s also the only food truck that has seating for their customers.”

Find out where El Gaupo’s food truck will be next by clicking here.

Jacques Tacos

El Guapo isn’t the only Mexican food truck that placed the list of best food trucks in Detroit.  Jacques’ Tacos, family-owned and operated, says its Mexican food was created by Michelin-rated Chef Wes Holton, and is entirely homemade with fresh, healthy ingredients.

Local 4 viewers like Claudia say they have the best tacos and their bulldog mascot.

“Best salsa around,” said Claudia. “Their chips were like nothing I have ever had before.”

Looking for where Jacques’ Tacos will be next? Click here to find it in the list of Vote 4 The Best winners.

Click to view the complete list of best food trucks recommended in the Detroit area.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/community/Best-food-trucks-in-and-around-Detroit-area/-/2207168/17076224/-/rih4t2z/-/index.html

The El Guapo Grill food truck serves at a rally last month in Dearborn. Dan Gearig and his wife, Lindsay, partnered with El Guapo Grill, which dishes up tacos with an international flair, in December and revamped its menu. (Ricardo Thomas / The Detroit News)

Dearborn — One night each month, the streets of downtown Dearborn come alive with the one-of-a-kind tastes and the flavors of gourmet street food.

The sizzle of hot dogs and smell of tacos pervade a stretch of West Village Road, where eight restaurants on wheels — and a live band — set up shop for a few hours to introduce their Mexican, Middle Eastern and American cuisine to a couple thousand customers. It’s a scene more common on a street corner of New York or Los Angeles than in suburban Detroit.

“When we come to town, people are curious about it and they come and check us out,” said William Anatra, as he served $2 hot dogs from a baby blue 1965 Volkswagen pickup dubbed Franks Anatra. “We’re like a circus.”

His mobile eatery is among a growing number of food trucks canvassing Metro Detroit. Food truck rallies similar to Dearborn’s have popped up in Royal Oak, Ferndale and Detroit’s Eastern Market and New Center.

Not too long ago, less than a handful of mobile restaurants were operating in the region; now more than a dozen food trucks are offering inexpensive gourmet grub and the number is expected to grow, observers say.

“At first I thought it was a fad but it seems to have staying power,” said Bonnie Riggs, a restaurant industry analyst with The NPD Group, a New York-based market research company. “It’s still pretty small in Michigan but it hasn’t gone away. You hear more and more about it growing.”

Cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Miami have had thriving food truck cultures for years, but Michigan is still new to the game. The state’s cold winters could have deterred potential vendors in the past, but popular shows like Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race have made the idea more mainstream.

Anatra, known to customers as Bill “The Hot Dog Guy,” said Michigan’s struggling economy has also helped the trend.

“You have thousands of people graduating from good culinary schools and if they can’t find jobs, they still want to express themselves,” he said. “People are learning to follow their dream a little bit and not stand in line and plop mashed potatoes on a plate.”

The growing popularity prompted Jim Mastrangel, owner of Jacques’ Tacos, to organize the first food truck rally in Royal Oak last fall. Such rallies, he said, are vital to the industry’s success.

“We believe the more opportunity people get to experience what a true food truck is, the bigger it’s going to get,” he said.

Dan Gearig is doing his part to grow the business. The 36-year-old Holly native, along with his wife, Lindsay, partnered with El Guapo Grill in December and revamped its menu. The couple opened a second truck, The Mac Shack, in May.

“We believe this isn’t a trend or a fad, and it’s not going to go away,” Gearig said. “I think Detroit is in the middle of a reawakening in a lot of different ways. There’s so many great things going on in restaurants and food.”

Not everyone is receptive to mobile restaurants, however.

There’s some tension between food trucks and traditional, brick-and-mortar restaurants, which contend the mobile operations steal customers and aren’t encumbered by property and other taxes. The issue came to a head earlier this year in Chicago, as the city hammered out regulations agreeable to both food trucks and traditional restaurants.

“Some food establishments are afraid to exist side by side with street vendors out of fear of taking away business,” Gearig said. “I think that people need to see street food is a real craft. We’re here to add to Detroit, not to vampire it.”

In Michigan, food trucks must be licensed, pay various fees and pass health inspections to operate.

Dan Carmody, president of Eastern Market, said at least one restaurant was concerned about food trucks in the neighborhood, but he said it was an easy decision for the market to host mobile restaurants.

“We want to celebrate creativity in the local food system,” he said. “Food trucks are a good step in the right direction.”

Dearborn businesses had minimal complaints about the latest rally outside their doors.

“It exposed us to a lot of people,” said Ross Varacalli, owner of The Well, a bar in the same courtyard as the rally. “We don’t serve food. It was a great bonus for us.”

Varacalli said business was up roughly 50 percent from a typical Friday night.

The vendors are getting plenty of support from each other, too.

“We’re a really tight-knit community,” said Scott Moloney, owner of Treat Dreams ice cream truck. “There’s a kind of kinship you see because we’re all used to the same challenges.”

Even with the support, Anatra said it takes a special kind of person to own a food truck.

“Each one of us almost has a gypsy or carny mentality; there’s part of our personality that’s not mainstream,” he said. “We’re driving a vehicle that we cook off of. A flat tire will take you out for the day. There’s a certain personality that thrives on that kind of dynamic, on that risk.”

Food carts aren’t just for working stiffs anymore. And you won’t only find them in big cities. Across the country, food cart culture is getting so sexy, it might be at risk of becoming a hipster cliché. But in contrast to some of the West Coast states that embraced the food cart revolution years ago, running a food cart—or bigger yet, a food truck—in Michigan ain’t easy. Just ask Leslie Narsisian-Voss: A mother of five, who, for the last several years, has been paying her daily permit fees and wading through the complex set of laws that govern Michigan food cart culture to bring a $5 falafel sandwich to the faithful in Traverse City and Grand Rapids—the latter of which just approved new, controversial food vendor regulations that have the city’s food truckers up in arms.

And you thought food cart culture was as simple as a Koegel on a steamed bun.

Earlier this week, we got this food cart veteran to dish about Michigan’s evolving food vendor scene, what she thinks of the new GR law, why she doesn’t hate hipsters, and how she breaks in “falafel virgins” (hint: she lets them watch).

Found Michigan: So I guess the food cart thing in Michigan is getting big enough where you might call it a “scene.” What’s your take on it?

Leslie: Well, the thing about food vending is that every single community has a completely different opinion about it. And it goes from wildly excited to completely put-off and angry. For instance, Traverse City right now is working on doubling its daily street vendor’s permit from $50 to $100. I think they’re concerned about sunglass vendors and all those people that come for festivals setting up and selling their ten dollar shades, and taking away from the two sunglass stores downtown—you know, that kind of thing. So I actually don’t think I’m the reason for the change. I don’t park near restaurants—I park in these vast places where there’s a lot of people that don’t get fed. I’m not even slightly bothering any other business owner. But I think I’m rare because I think the new movement is more like C’mon, get over it—free enterprise, man! We should be able to park in front of a restaurant, even though we pay nothing. So the scene is very much a mixed bag. But it is frustrating for a vendor, because every single time you want to go anywhere, you have to dig and read and try to figure out what the rules are.

FM: And what are the rules?

Leslie: Well, like I said, it’s different in every community. But in Traverse City, for instance, the city has jurisdiction over everything. You can only park on private property; you cannot park on any government property—beaches, parks, whatever. So you have to find a landlord that will let you sit there; and maybe they’ll charge you rent, maybe they won’t. However, even if you’re on private property and you have permission of the property owner, you will pay the city $50 a day in the summer and $50 a week in the winter.

FM: Wait a minute—so before you even start, you have to literally scope a piece of property that you might want to set up on, then find out who owns that piece of property, and then cold call them to see if they’ll let you vend there?

Leslie: Yep, that’s exactly what I’ve done countless times.

FM: Wow.

Leslie: But then in Grand Rapids, the other place where I vend, they have a totally different take. They’ll only allow the little carts downtown—no big food trucks—and you have to be in one of 13 designated zones. But their fee is $246 for the entire year! And you can go out there anytime you want, until like three in the morning or something—with certain restrictions during festivals. And if I had a second cart, it’s only $22 more per year. In order to vend in Grand Rapids with my little cart, though, I just found out I have to make the tow hitch on my cart removable to comply with their safety regulations. In fact, I just got back from a welding shop where I was talking to a guy about doing that! So, you know, like I said, every city is different.

FM: And Grand Rapids, they’ve just passed some new laws about food vendors, right?

Leslie: Yeah, well before, food trucks weren’t allowed in the city at all. Just the little carts, like traditional hot dog carts. And now they’ve made this lovely proposal—and it passed last week—which allows you to park your truck in the city. But as I understand it, it involves a bunch of complicated and potentially expensive permits, and still only allows you to park on private property, and only if you have permission from the property owner. So it sort of defeated everything that the food trucks wanted, which—I get the feeling—was complete freedom: you know, to be able to park most anywhere.

And I’m not really sure I totally agree with the whole “complete freedom” thing anyway. You know, if I put a few million dollars into a brick-and-mortar restaurant, and I was paying property taxes, and you park in front of me on a festival day because you can—I don’t think that’s goodwill to anybody. On the other hand, I understand that everyone needs to step up their game. And some of the people that are against the food trucks, these are old-money folks that have been raking it in for years in their restaurants. And they don’t want to look at pricing—at value—on their menus. They don’t have that passion anymore. So these young people come in with the passion, and they become more interesting to the customer. And to those more established people, I say: Tough rocks. You need to wake up and understand this economy is tight and people don’t always have $20 for lunch, and give people what they want. Or don’t be angry when someone comes in and does give them what they want.

FM: Well said. And for you, you’ve actually been able to make a living at this, right?

Leslie: Yeah, well last summer, when my husband Pete lost his job, his unemployment and my falafel cart—working two days a week for three hours a day—paid all our bills. And we’re better off, financially, than we’ve ever been. And that’s just with my little cart. But I like my style. I like the fact that I can tell another person who has a passion about food and the perseverance to jump through the hoops, how they could do it. You can’t really say to somebody from the window of one of these cute, fancy food trucks: You can do it, too. You can’t—because it’s maybe $80,000 for the truck. But I can walk up to somebody and say that for under 10 grand, if you love what you do, and you love the people you serve—you can make a living. And I love that. It feels like I have the best of all worlds.

FM: So when people think of food carts these days, they probably think of young hipsters in skinny jeans lining up to get their vegan sandwiches. And not that you’re not hip, but you don’t exactly fit the mold. Do you ever roll your eyes at those folks?

Leslie: Ha! You’d think I would! But I’ll tell you truth: When I bought my cart three years ago, I never Googled food carts; I didn’t touch the internet. I just went to Craigslist and I just bought a freakin’ hot dog cart. I didn’t know it was cool. And the guy delivered it from Urbana, Illinois—this beautiful black man; half Indian, half African American—and we spoke for two hours in the rain in my garage after he dropped this thing off after a nine hour drive. I was so excited. And the next week, I went online and I typed in “food carts.” And up came the first article about—of course—Portland, Oregon. They had 450 food carts! And I got chills from head to toe knowing something that I knew I would love and that I could work hard at, was actually something that the country was recognizing and that smart innovative people were doing. And I thought, What the hell?! I’m an old lady with postpartum depression!

FM: [Laughs]

Leslie: So no, I don’t roll my eyes at anyone. I love them all. I eat at other people’s food trucks, and I just enjoy everybody. Some of the craziest people come up to my cart. And I love every one of them, from every walk of life. And the trendy ones? They’re just making my job easier.

FM: So Leslie, one more question. Even though food carts are “in” now, they really are kind of a relic of the past. Do you find that people don’t know how to act around them? Like, are people shy about approaching you?

Leslie: Ha! Well, it’s a total mixed bag. But I’m sure that a lot of customers do not come because they’re shy. But the shyer ones, sometimes I can warm them up and they become regulars. It helps that they can see how I make the sandwich and that makes them more comfortable—that they can watch the process from a safe distance of three feet away. Plus half of my customers seem to be what I call “falafel virgins.” Up in Traverse City, especially. But once they’ve tasted it, honest to God, they become my slaves. It’s just frightening—I have stalkers! You know, you just have to try my sandwich.

FM: Well, we’re glad to see that it has pickled turnips on it.

Leslie: Oh yeah? Well, I’ve got four buckets sitting right here in my dining room that are just marinating in garlic and look so good.

FM: So you make your own?

Leslie: What—are you from the Health Department? I refuse to answer that question.

###

Leslie Narsisian-Voss runs The Pita Pistop, a falafel cart you’ll find roaming the streets—correction—occupying officially sanctioned spots in Traverse City and Grand Rapids. Find out exactly where by following her on Facebook.

So are you a food cart virgin? Time to get that monkey off your back. There are literally dozens of food carts and trucks operating now in cities across Michigan. Here are some good places to start.

Ann Arbor

Food cart heaven in Ann Arbor is a cement courtyard behind Main Street called Mark’s Carts: a little oasis of eight different food carts specializing in everything from artisan grilled cheese to wood-fired pizza to Asian street food. What Mark’s might lack in the charm that comes with hunting down a roaming truck, it makes up for in dependability: plus, plenty of seating, something for everyone, and even live music on the weekends.

Grand Rapids

Despite the ongoing debate about mobility restrictions, GR remains one of the food-cart-friendliest cities in Michigan. Two favorites include What the Truck, which serves pork tacos, breakfast burritos, and other treats, and The Silver Spork, with a menu of seasonal gourmet soups, smoothies, sandwiches and pastries (a signature dish: the Mitten Bagel, made with locally sourced smoked whitefish, watercress, red onion, capers, tomato and cream cheese).

Detroit

Food-on-the-go has been a part of Detroit culture for many years, from the stalwart taco trucks of Mexicantown to newer enterprises like gourmet coffee purveyor Urban Grounds, whose cute, vintage red kiosk has been a fixture in Campus Martius since 2008. The mobile part of mobile food vending in Detroit has been tricky, though: For a long time, ancient laws prohibited trucks from operating on streets within city limits. The first truck to clear that red tape was El Guapo Grill, a slick black truck serving fresh Mexican fare like cilantro jalapeno lemonade, pork belly confit, and fish tacos. Since then, other trucks have entered the scene in the metro area, including Green Zebra (elevated American street food; fresh-made chips, fried green tomato sandwiches, shortrib grilled cheese), Concrete Cuisine (creative gourmet eats like fried calamari sandwiches and cinnamon-sugar sweet potato fries), and, the winner of our unofficial Best Name for a Food Truck Contest, the Peoples Pierogi Collective (serving—you guessed it—all manner of pierogi). To sample the best from these vendors without driving all over metro Detroit, keep an eye out for upcoming food truck rallies at Ferndale’s Rust Belt Market and Detroit’s Eastern Market.

Lansing

Food carts are nothing new in the capital, where the El Oasis food cart has been dishing up authentic Mexican eats–sopas, tortas, tacos, and tripe–for seven years. Newcomers include Trailer Park’d, focusing on locally sourced ingredients in “slow fast food” like chorizo tacos, burgers, and ribs; and the adorable Purple Carrot food truck, dishing up a Michigan-centric, farm-to-table style menu of fresh foods, like strawberry soup, Oberon ham and cheese, and chicken bahn mi.

http://www.foundmichigan.org/wp/2012/06/28/food-truckers-inside-michigans-burgeoning-food-cart-experiment/

]]> http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/07/food-truckers-inside-michigans-burgeoning-food-cart-experiment/feed/ 0 http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/03/detroit-mi-dago-joes-food-truck-rolls-away-with-business-from-nearby-checker-bar-grill/ http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2012/03/detroit-mi-dago-joes-food-truck-rolls-away-with-business-from-nearby-checker-bar-grill/#comments Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:31:45 +0000 MobileFoodNews.com http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/?p=25013 By Neal Rubin | The Detroit News

Customers order food from Dago Joe’s food truck, which parks near longtime Detroit eatery the Checker Bar & Grill and competes for the lunch crowd. (Todd McInturf / The Detroit News)

Joe Sciamanna is an engaging and energetic guy who’s brought bright colors and ravioli to a dull gray corner of downtown. His neighbor wants him to get lost.

Ask him why he opened where he did and he spreads his arms and twirls, like Julie Andrews dancing through the verdant hills at the start of “The Sound of Music.” The sightlines, the skyscrapers: “How could I be anywhere else?”

It’s easy, his neighbor says. Just turn the key and go.

Sciamanna, 48, owns a food truck with the somewhat eyebrow-raising name of Dago Joe’s. Two Thursdays ago, he berthed it in the otherwise drab parking lot at Bates and Cadillac Square.

A 10-second walk away, Karen and Kathy Munro run the Checker Bar & Grill. It’s been in the family since 1955 and in that spot for 30 years.

“We get a little bit busier every day,” says Sciamanna, 48, who lives in Macomb Township.

“The first day he showed up, we only had 10 people in here for lunch,” says Karen Munro, 55, who lives in Lafayette Park.

Sciamanna was an unemployed construction worker when he created his truck, which is actually a lime green and purple trailer towed by a yellow Ford van. He says he’s living a dream.

The Munros grew up in the bar, which still has its trademark black and white checkerboard tables with customers’ signatures on the squares. Last year they maybe paid themselves minimum wage.

“We feel we’re going to enhance the area,” Sciamanna says.

“We have to deal with utilities and property taxes and maintain a building, and he shows up for two hours a day,” Munro says. “How is that fair?”

Growing city trend

Regulations and red tape kept food trucks out of Detroit until last year, even as they became as trendy as cupcakes in other cities.

They’re fresh and fun, with catchy names and splashy designs and items you don’t typically find at restaurants where “overhead” doesn’t mean a sunroof. They’re good for a city’s atmosphere and image.

They’re bright new lights, and everyone likes a shiny object — but there’s an unfortunate trade-off if some of the old lights start to dim.

The Munros are competing, not just complaining. Dago Joe’s sells a meatball sandwich for $6.49, so the Checker Bar added one for $2.99. It hasn’t raised prices in three years, and you’ll find turkey and vegetarian burgers on the menu along with the trademark patty custom-ground from select cuts of steak.

The problem is, Munro says, there simply aren’t as many mouths to feed downtown as there used to be, even with the addition of Quicken Loans. Nobody drinks. City workers’ lunch breaks have been cut to 30 minutes, so they’re eating at their desks.

“It’s brutal,” she says. When her dad, Harry, turned 80, they had a sprawling party at the bar. The founder of the feast just turned 90, and this time the party was friends-and-family at somebody’s house. They couldn’t afford to throw the doors open for free.

For his part, Sciamanna tried to be neighborly.

His first day, he stopped by hoping to buy or borrow cash register tape. No sale. Then he offered to pass out Checker Bar fliers at his pickup window.

“We’re paying rent like everyone else around here,” he says, though of course he realizes it’s not the same. He’s too small to be the rising tide that lifts all fish sandwiches, “but we’re hoping we’ll jog some memories about how cool it is down here,” and then everyone will be better off.

No plans to move

Until then, he’ll just keep churning out antipasto, tortellini, minestrone and whatever else he can fit in a confined space along with five scurrying workers in purple T-shirts.

Mobile as he may be, he has no immediate plans to move, and that won’t make his neighbors happy. “But no one,” he points out helpfully, “can eat a meatball sandwich every day.”

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120319/OPINION03/203190329/Dago-Joe-s-food-truck-rolls-away-business-from-nearby-Checker-Bar-Grill?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p

TOP: Jeff Aquilina preps the Pilgrim -- roasted turkey breast, cranberry-almond relish, smoked gouda cheese and organic spring mix with ginger aioli on a grilled whole wheat flatbread.

So you think you’d like to open a food truck.

As Jeff Aquilina and Justin Kava can attest, there’s more to it than buying some wheels, bolting a flat-top to the floor and hitting the streets as vagabond chefs with a Twitter account.

There are excruciatingly detailed licensing requirements, quirky problems that real restaurants don’t have — like sloping counters when you park on a hill — and the challenges of staying open in winter.

But five months after rolling out their Concrete Cuisine gourmet food truck in Detroit’s western suburbs, the two veteran chefs look back on their experience — even the licensing gauntlet — with satisfaction and a sense of humor. They’re enjoying rave reviews for their diverse, restaurant-quality menu. And they’ve gotten used to people e-mailing to ask, “How do we open a food truck?”

“We say, ‘Start at the Health Department,’ ” says Kava.

“We don’t give them any information,” Aquilina adds.

But last week, as they prepared for the lunchtime crowd at Valassis headquarters in Livonia, they dished about what it took to get their vehicle — a former Cleveland transit bus turned ice cream truck — on the road and what they’ve learned along the way.

They started working to get their license from the Wayne County Health Department — known for its tough standards — in the spring.

“It took us three or four months,” says Kava, 32, of Livonia. “You had to come up with a plan review, the same as you would with a bricks-and-mortar restaurant. They wanted to see your whole layout. They wanted to know every single piece of equipment — dimensions, specs, where you’re buying it. You have to have a spec sheet for every single thing — the exact model.

“They wanted to know your food sources and the entire flow of the food. … We had to say we were getting the chicken, for instance, from U.S. Foods. And then it’s, ‘OK, you buy your chicken frozen. What’s your thawing-out process? How do you cook it? How do you hold it? How do you serve it?’ We had to go through every single menu item and do the exact food flow.”

And those were only a few of the requirements.

“They say you have to do this, this, this and this,” says Aquilina, 35, of Plymouth. “So you go back and do that, and keep redoing it. The final step was the lighting. We didn’t have a lighting chart. They wanted to know where the lights are going to be and what’s covering the lights.”

“We were amazed at the amount of steps,” adds Kava. Other people told them they should have gone to Oakland County, where the process is said to be easier. “But you know, it’s cool, because once you actually receive the license, you have a sense of accomplishment.”

They are veteran chefs who have worked together before, including at the Lark in West Bloomfield, when Marcus Haight was chef. Kava left there to be Haight’s sous chef in an advanced culinary program at Schoolcraft College. Aquilina later worked for Matt Prentice, serving as executive chef at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield for six years.

Cooking on a food truck isn’t exactly like being in a restaurant.

“If we’re parking on an angle, the fryer oil might go to one side,” says Aquilina. “Or you set your tongs or something down on the cutting board, and it slides. … There are a lot of little nuances that people don’t take into consideration until you live it and learn it,” he says. “But we’ve got it down to a science now. Angles are just … another angle!”

They have regular stops at office buildings in the Livonia-Farmington Hills area, participate in special events like last weekend’s Camp Casey Fest fund-raiser in Ferndale, worked last summer at area concerts and sporting events and hired out for graduation parties and other festivities.

Aquilina and Kava opened in the suburbs because they were denied a permit to work in Detroit. But a month after they were turned down, city officials gave the El Guapo Fresh Mexican Grill truck a six-month special-use permit as a kind of test case, to see how it would work. Meanwhile, the city is updating its decades-old mobile food vendor regulations.

With their success in the suburbs, Aquilina and Kava don’t necessarily want to be in Detroit regularly. “But we would like to be able to go to sporting events or festivals down there. We’d like to be a part of Detroit,” Aquilina says.

Adds Kava: “We’re hoping (El Guapo) will be successful for that reason,” so the city will want more food-truck action downtown.

While metro Detroit’s other trucks serve upscale tacos and other Mexican-inspired foods, Concrete Cuisine took a deliberately different approach to appeal to a wider audience.

“Either you want tacos or you don’t,” says Aquilina. “With us you get a little bit of everything, and it changes quite often. We like to think there’s something here for everyone.”

Last week’s new items included the Renaissance — a thick slice of hot meat loaf set atop a crisp horseradish-and-potato pancake with savory mushroom gravy — and the Pilgrim, a big panini-grilled rollup filled with thick slices of roasted turkey, smoked gouda, spring mix salad greens and cranberry-almond relish.

But that day’s best seller was the fresh-grilled KoHo — a wild-caught salmon burger dressed with Green Goddess sauce, baby spinach and onion.

Julie Weatherspoon, 46, an executive assistant in Valassis’ legal department, was one of the first to arrive for lunch. The food is “fabulous” and “nothing like I was expecting” from a truck, she says. “I’m out here every week now,” she says, holding a box containing a KoHo and a side of hot Sweeties sweet potato fries.

“As a matter of fact,” she adds, “we had to keep the Quicken Loans people (in another building) away. Typically there are 20 or 30 of them out here before all of us can get out. So our people had to establish that they can’t come over until later on.”

Aquilina and Kava hope to keep truckin’ this winter. They’ve ordered canvas side and front panels to suspend from the truck’s awning to keep customers dry and out of the wind.

They wouldn’t be worrying about that with a bricks-and-mortar place, which already has heat and a roof.

But that’s fine with them.

“We feel like we went down the right path, choosing the bus instead of the restaurant,” says Kava.

http://www.freep.com/article/20111020/ENT08/110200319/Concrete-Cuisine-owners-enjoy-food-truck-business

El Guapo Fresh Mexican Grill co-owners Doug Runyon (left) and Anthony Curis have expanded Detroit's first legal food truck to four locations and started catering. Michael Wayland | MLive.com

Two Metro Detroit natives are becoming pioneers of an emerging Motor City food industry.

Since July, El Guapo Fresh Mexican Grill co-owners Anthony Curis and Doug Runyon have expanded Detroit’s first legal food truck to four locations and started catering.

“I knew this was a good thing,” Runyon told MLive Detroit from inside the mobile eatery. “With only being open three months, we’re doing things I didn’t think we could do.”

El Guapo – Detroit’s first fully sanctioned downtown food truck – started out at corner of Monroe and Randolph, but recently expanded to Brush and Madison near Ford Field, by Detroit Medical Center off of John R and Eastern Market (every Saturday).

“It kind of seems like the Randolph and Monroe is our home base and now that we’re adding Midtown locations and a stadium district location, it’s been great so far,” Curis said. “It’s just a matter of really running up our customers in those areas and getting people used to knowing that we’re there.”

Curis, a 30-year-old Grosse Pointe Shores native, said he visited Detroit City Hall about 60 times this year, working closely with Kim James, director of the Buildings, Safety, Engineering and Environmental Department, to secure the locations.

Jose Lira, 22, cooks up a breakfast burritos inside El Guapo Fresh Mexican Grill in Eastern Market. Michael Wayland | MLive.com

El Guapo employs seven people and usually serves about 80 to 115 customers for lunch a day, according to Curis. On Friday, El Guapo served its 10,000th customer.

The Mexican eatery, which can be tracked through social networking such as Twitter and Facebook, offer everything from breakfast burritos and marinated steak tacos to Pink Elephant cupcakes. Items on the menu range from about $2 for tacos to $7 for a breakfast combo that includes any burrito, papas fritas (tater tots) and a beverage.

Runyon, a 36-year-old Waterford native, said the best-sellers are the breakfast burrito (egg, cheese, potatoes and salsa) and the chorizo burrito (spicy pork sausage inside a flour tortilla with seasoned rice, beans, diced tomatoes, queso fresco and salsa).

“I’m very happy we came out and got it,” said Ray Chanvonett, 57, of Monroe, during El Guapo’s fist Saturday at Eastern Market in early October. “It was very good.”

Runyon said the goal of Eastern Market is to make El Guapo a cornerstone of the market for fresh food.

“I think it will create a presence,” he said. “Not only can you come here for your produce, meat, specialty items; it can be a place where you can hangout.

“Most markets across the country are like that.”

El Guapo plans to stay open through the winter, heavily relying on catering and routine customers for business.

“We’re doing a lot of catering events, but we’re also going to start doing call-in orders and we’re running with the possibility of delivery as well,” Curis said. “Call-in orders are starting to be a big thing for us.”

http://www.mlive.com/business/detroit/index.ssf/2011/10/el_guapo_fresh_mexican_grill_t.html

Ferndale’s newest food truck, Taco Mama, debuted this week with a menu that features Mexican flavors in fusion forms.

“I’m really trying to branch out and do something different than the average taco truck,” says owner Kerry Hubbard, a caterer who lives in Pleasant Ridge. The lineup changes weekly and runs from Mexican jambalaya and slider burgers to tacos, quesadillas and empanadas. Nothing costs more than $5.

Her yellow truck usually parks at Woodward and Withington, near Boogie Fever, on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. until 2 p.m., but she took today off to prepare for Saturday, when she will be in the Hertz rental lot on Woodward, next to Vogue Vintage, 11 a.m.-9 p.m..

Hubbard uses Twitter to announce her menu and schedule. She tweets at @tacomamadetroit. Her Web site is www.tacomamadetroit.com

http://www.freep.com/article/20110819/ENT08/110819052/Taco-Mama-food-truck-hits-street-Ferndale?odyssey=nav%7Chead