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KALAMAZOO—The owner and operator of a popular food truck business specializing in seasonal, organic, unrefined and local foods will be the next speaker in the Entrepreneurship Forum at Western Michigan University.

Bridgett Blough, a certified natural chef and founder of The Organic Gypsy, a food truck business providing “nourishment on the go” to West Michigan, will speak at 8 a.m. Friday, March 8, in 2150 Schneider Hall.

The event is free and open to the public and begins at 7:30 a.m. with breakfast, which will be catered by Blough. Reservations are required and can be made by contacting Kayla Hunt at (269) 387-6059 or kayla.j.hunt@wmich.edu. Free parking is available in the nearby Fetzer Center parking lot.

Bridgett Blough

Blough was raised on a farm, learning the benefits of eating foods from local and reputable sources at an early age. In addition to running her business and being a certified natural chef, she is a yoga instructor, Pilates instructor, personal trainer and writer. She also serves as a personal chef, caterer, workshop leader and retreat host.

The Organic Gypsy is a restaurant on wheels offering flavorful and healthful dishes and products, prepared by Blough. Taking the idea of eating locally to a new level, The Organic Gypsy guarantees integrity in ingredient sources and attention to detail in its finished products, all while providing a truly local twist by driving to the customer. The business offers both a regular schedule of “gypsy sightings,” events, times and locations for the food truck, as well as catering services.

A strong proponent of the farm-to-table movement, Blough’s focus in her business is on supporting the local economy, sustainable ecosystems and promotion of overall health.

Blough plans to expand her enterprise this spring with a brick and mortar café located in the Renaissance Athletic Center near the second tee of Harbor Shores Golf Course in Benton Harbor, Mich. The café’s offerings will include a coffee and juice bar along with sandwiches, soup, salad, smoothies and baked goods.

The Entrepreneurship Forum is sponsored by Educational Community Credit Union and hosted by the WMU Haworth College of Business.

For more information, visit wmich.edu/business or call (269) 387-6059.

http://www.wmich.edu/news/2013/02/5273

This is an artist’s rendering of The Panini Express, an immobile food truck to be stationed near The Union Cabaret & Grille in downtown Kalamazoo. It slated to open in March.
Courtesy of Millennium Restaurant Group

KALAMAZOO, MI – An immobile “food truck” serving paninis, soups and salads is expected to open next month in downtown Kalamazoo.

The Panini Express will be a food truck that never moves and located inside the City Centre on the South Kalamazoo Mall, just outside The Union Cabaret & Grille, 125 S. Kalamazoo Mall. It will be owned by the Millennium Restaurant Group, which also owns The Union.

It will serve grilled-to-order sandwiches and paninis, as well as soups and salads, according to a press release from Millennium that also announced the Centre Street Tap House would open in Portage in the fall.

“With the growing amount of downtown businesses and residents, we saw a great opportunity to add to the downtown lunch scene,” Millennium Restaurant Group partner Bob Lewis said. “We love the concept of food trucks … It’s now what we usually do, but this is our spin on it.”

The Panini Express will be opened 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and additional hours for Art Hops, according to the release.

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2013/02/immobile_food_truck_specializi.html

BRIDGETT BLOUGH SERVES UP SOME OF HER FOOD TO CUSTOMERS AT BRONSON PARK IN KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN. – ERIK HOLLADAY

Bridgett Blough, the Organic Gypsy, knows the farmers from whom she buys produce that goes into food she sells from her big blue food truck.

She grew up in rural Coloma Township, north of St. Joseph, and before she put an item on the menu she visits each farmer to check out his or her growing practices. That leads Blough to describe her work as food that’s “handcrafted and thoughtfully sourced” or to put it another way: “slow food fast, from farm to truck” — two of the mottoes that adorn her vehicle.

Though the seasons have changed, the truck remains on the road, making appearances Dec. 1 at the Saugatuck Market and in Chicago, Dec. 15-16 at the Randolph Street Market.

She’s part of what the National Restaurant Association calls “one of the hottest trends in the restaurant industry right now.” And one that is just pulling into Southwest Michigan. In August, the City of Kalamazoo approved licensing for food trucks that allows them to sell on public streets as long as they are at least 150 feet from existing brick-and-mortar restaurants and 100 feet from city sanctioned fairs and festivals.

With that approval Blough quickly made her presence and her food known locally. She sold food from her blue truck at the People’s Food Co-op’s 100 Mile Market, catered events for Kalamazoo College Homecoming, and could be found downtown across from city hall on certain days.

This summer she also regularly set up for business at the farmers market in St. Joseph.

In June, she traveled to the four-day Electric ForestFestival (formerly known as Rothbury), where offering the only organic food on the property proved to be a big draw. “Every day I got busier and busier. People were tweeting that I had the best ice cream. It’s not your typical festival food. It’s a different niche.”

As she sat parked next to carnie wagons selling elephant ears, hot dogs, and hamburgers she started to get positive feedback. People repeatedly told her: “It’s so nice to have healthy food.”

She’s found that people are willing to pay a little more because they place a higher value on organic food grown locally. Customers also appreciate that her serving utensils and plates and cups are all 100 percent biodregradable.

Blough, a 2008 graduate of Kalamazoo College, where she studied economics, realized around then that she wanted to own her own business but was not certain what that might be. An interest in wellness led her to the health and fitness industry, specifically yoga and pilates. There she quickly learned that people had mostly a very negative relationship with food and she began to consider what she could do to turn that around.

“I love to eat and to share food with people,” Blough says. “At some point, for a lot of people in our culture, food became the enemy, something to limit, something to be watchful of.”

She decided to enroll at Bauman College to become a Certified Natural Chef where she studied food for special diets.

It was at a festival at Lake Tahoe that the seed was planted that would grow into Blough’s owning a food truck. The food there was really expensive and not exactly nutritious. She knew she could do better.

Her next step was to find the right truck. She recognized she could never afford a fully fitted-out truck from the factory — they can start at $100,000. Blough decided instead to refit a new fire truck by Spencer Manufacturing. After studying a lot of other trucks, she determined what she needed to make a moveable kitchen and place from which to sell her food. Following her design, Blough’s father and cousin made the changes to the vehicle, taking out the rescue equipment and installing stainless steel prep tables, a stove, storage, and more.

Considering the wary attitude some brick-and-mortar restaurants have toward food trucks, Blough’s road to success has not always been easy. Officials tried to have her ejected from the South Haven Farmers Market this summer. She successfully pointed out that if she had been selling the same food from a tent no one would be challenging her right to sell her organic entrees.

On the other hand, the reaction to Blough’s food has been overwhelmingly positive. Some of her successes have been healthy popsicles and yogurt parfaits. She also has learned not to bill her gluten free cookies that way unless patrons ask. People who have eaten tasteless gluten free pastries won’t try them. The cherry, almond, chocolate cookie sold out in South Haven.

Her menu often changes with what farmers have available in season. “I try a recipe, cost it out and put it on the menu. It is more difficult than getting it from big food distributors but it is worth it to me.” For example, a popular sandwich using arugula came off the menu when the summer drought ruined the lettuce crop.

When she hits the road, she travels with the statue of a Buddha as her co-pilot in the truck that measures 21 feet long, 7 feet wide and 7 feet tall, and she says that learning to drive “a real truck” has in many ways tested her resourcefulness.

Support from her family has made it all possible.

“There is no way I could have done this without them,” Blough says, “and I am humbled by how much they have helped.”

http://swmichigan.secondwavemedia.com/features/organicgypsy112.aspx

Mark Bugnaski | MLive.com Bridgett Blough, owner of The Organic Gypsy talks with customers from the window of her truck parked alongside Bronson Park.

KALAMAZOO, MI – Bridgett Blough has taken the farm-to-table ethos and added wheels.

Her Organic Gypsy food truck sells everything from homemade root beer to organic granola, but there’s one thing you won’t find, Blough said: Any cans from Sysco or Gordon Foods.

“I take that really seriously,” said Blough, a certified natural chef who said the truck is also GMO-free and whose tagline is “nourishment on the go.”

In August, the Kalamazoo City Commission unanimously adopted a food-truck ordinance allowing the mobile vendors on city streets. Food trucks are allowed to operate downtown, as long as they are at least 150 feet away from an established restaurant that’s open for business.

The Organic Gypsy is now one of three in Kalamazoo, including local veteran Gorilla Gourmet, which launched in 2010, and Coffee Rescue, a coffee delivery service that operates out of a converted ambulance.

“It’s awesome,” said Blough of the ordinance. “I’m so thankful and grateful it passed.”

Blough and the two other food trucks set up in Bronson Park Friday for the first time since the ordinance passed. She plans to be there again this Friday, as well as at the 100-mile market at the People’s Food Co-op Wednesday. Both Organic Gypsy and Gorilla Gourmet will participate in a planned Halloween event at the Food Co-op, said Blough, who plans to pass out organic candy.

“I think it’s going to be great for downtown,” said Dan Kim, a Kalamazoo resident and self-professed foodie. Kim, who didn’t let a little rain deter him from dining al fresco, was lunching on Organic Gypsy’s tomato pesto melt and chickpea stew with fried egg on top. In general, he said, “Cuisine is looking up in Kalamazoo.”

Another patron also tried Blough’s chickpea stew: Mayor Bobby Hopewell.

“It was unbelievable,” said Hopewell. “It was unexpectedly wonderful.”

Blough said she went the food-truck route rather than catering or a restaurant because of the freedom of movement.

“I didn’t want to be restricted,” said Blough, who’s taken the food truck as far as a festival in Des Moines this summer and tweets her location to her followers. “That, to me, is fun.”

The other reason, she said, is that street food means erasing the distance between herself and her customers.

“It’s real. People that eat my food can see my face and see the kitchen,” said Blough. “It’s grass roots, and that’s what I like about it.”

That’s not to say that there aren’t challenges.

” ‘What’s a food truck?’ I hear that all the time,” said Blough.

Also, the local approach means “doing everything backwards,” Blough explained.

Instead of planning a menu and going shopping, for example, Blough said she visits farmers, such as Aaron Molter Farms in Watervliet and Mattawan Creamery, sees what they have on offer, and creates dishes from what’s available.

“It definitely creates more work,” said Blough, a Kalamazoo College alum who got her certification from Bauman College in California.

In addition, Blough said she also has to deal with a learning curve with people accustomed to fast food coming with a dollar menu.

“I don’t have huge portions,” said Blough , who said she wants her meals to be nutritious. “My food isn’t cheap.”

Kalamazoo’s robust locavore movement means that is less of an issue here, she said.

“It’s been great,” she said. “People whose eyes are already open love it.”

Blough was so committed to her venture that she built the food truck herself earlier this year, with help from a cousin, Garrett Spencer, whose family prefabricates fire trucks.

The months-long process included cutting off the top of the shell, which she purchased in South Carolina, and raising it, so she could stand up inside to cook, and installing running water and a generator.

“It was really crazy,” said Blough. “That was a huge learning process.”

Blough said she became a chef after working as a personal trainer and yoga instructor in California. Her clients had questions about what qualified as healthy eating, so Blough began cooking for them and bringing recipes along with the meals.

In addition to Kalamazoo, Blough also appeared at South Haven’s Farmers Market and the Harbor Market in Benton Harbor.

While she hopes to do a few more events locally, she said she doesn’t plan to be on the road during the winter: The combination of bad driving conditions and little in the way of fresh produce means that she’ll be hanging up her keys for the season, she said.

Blough, who also caters, sells a line of Organic Gypsy shelf products, including her organic granola, cinnamon almonds, barbecue sauce and canned heirloom tomatoes, which she plans to focus on during the off-season.

She also hopes to get her homemade root beer, made from wild sassafras roots and sweetened with maple syrup from Paw Paw’s Jack & Jill’s Maple Hill Farm, bottled this winter.

“It’s a really healthy alternative to pop,” said Blough of the root beer, which has smokier undertones than a store-bought soda.

The seasonal nature of the menus means that she can’t get attached to any specific recipes.

“I’m saying goodbye to my tomatoes this week,” said Blough. “That’s hard.”

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2012/10/new_food_truck_organic_gypsy_r.html

Gorilla Gourmet, a local food truck owned by Noel Corwin is operating at 305 Oakland Drive, between Bellevue Place and Lovell Street.

KALAMAZOO, MI –Two food truck operators applied for licenses to start doing business along Kalamazoo’s streets on Thursday, the day an ordinance allowing food trucks took effect.

Chef Noel Corwin, the Gorilla Gourmet, chats with customers from the window of his food truck. Bradley Pines | Kalamazoo Gazette

Gorilla Gourmet, a local food truck owned by Noel Corwin, adopted Ghetto Gourmet, an eclectic cheese sandwich business owned by Jamie Perkins. The two set up shop at 415 Oakland Drive, between Bellevue Place and Lovell Street.

“Its like Gorilla Gourmet is a little ghetto and Ghetto Gourmet is a little gorrilla,” said Corwin. “Its about putting our resources together, combining super powers, so we won’t loose our butts (financially). We’re a bunch of culinary terrorists trying to blow up people’s palates,” he joked.

The food truck concept is not new. It has been a part of the New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco (where Corwin got the idea) landscapes for years. It is a phenomenon in Portland, Ore. where intersections and parks have large groupings of food trucks called “pods.” A second season of The Food Network’s reality show “The Great Food Truck Race” will debut in August.

The concept now has moved into to the Midwest. Grand Rapids-based food truck What the Truck is owned by Paul Lee who also owns The Winchester. Ann Arbor also has several new mobile street vendors that serve a variety of foods.

The food at Gorilla Gourmet is not your typical fare. There is no deep-fryer. Corwin sautes foods with a cast-iron skillet passed down from his great grandmother. He makes vegetable soup from scratch with vegetable stock.

Perkins’ cheese sandwiches have more unusual combinations: bacon, avocado and smoked Cheddar cheese (the sugar bear); smoked bleu cheese, spinach, prosciutto and onions slowly caramelized with whiskey (Anders Mountain String Band); and seared Ahi tuna, soy wasabi cream cheese, cucumber and Asian slaw (baby mama). All the bread is made by pastry chef Phil Rose of Oakwood Bistro.

Corwin’s chicken tacos are made with chunks of juicy, seasoned chicken thigh meat, freshly cut pineapple, cole slaw laced with Sriracha hot sauce and crumbled bits of salty Mexican queso.

This is the first time Gorilla Gourmet has established a permanent location. Corwin bought the truck last May and setup once a week at the Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market. He also participated in Taste of Kalamazoo and catered.

But now, neighborhood residents, students from Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College can get a taste of their gourmet street food ranging in price from $2 (tacos) to $5 (grilled cheese sandwiches).

“All of my friends are talking about their tacos, stopping by after classes,” said Leigh Ann Ulrey, 22, a student from Kalamazoo College who strolled up to Gorilla Gourmet for the first time on a recent afternoon. “They say the food is amazing.”

A friend, Jillian Reese, 22, who also attends Kalamazoo College, sat down with Ulrey at the one table in front of the truck.

“Now, this is a real taco,” said Reese after taking a bite.

Inside the truck, Corwin and Perkins had to do a little dance each time they passed by one another in the truck’s skinny kitchen. The truck rocked beneath their feet.

If the business were made into a movie, it would most surely be called “When Bellies Collide,” Corwin joked.

Despite the jokes, it was not easy for Corwin to open his business on Oakland. It was snowing the day he opened — April 15 — not exactly good for foot traffic. A water line in the truck froze and broke. The crankshaft cracked and immobilized the truck.

Corwin has a permit for a special transitory touring unit. He leases the parking lot and has access to water and utilities and use of a shed for storage.

The Oakland site is slightly distressed, but that makes Corwin and Perkins feel like culinary pioneers, they said.

“It’s a start, to get our food out there” Corwin said. “It’s good for people to realize I’m not some dirt bag cooking out of a meth lab,” he joked.

Perkins and Corwin met at Bell’s Eccentric Cafe.

“Noel has been generous to let me put my food out of his window,” said Perkins, a former Oakwood Bistro cook, who also had the idea of creating a food truck.

“I saw the truck and said ‘Man! Somebody beat me to it.’ ”

The food truck is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesdays to Sundays.

http://www.mlive.com/living/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/05/kalamazoos_only_food_truck_gor.html