MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Cafe2U pioneered the concept of mobile coffee vans, starting in Australia in 2000. In 2004, the company began offering territories to franchisees. Today the company is the premier mobile coffee franchise system in Australia — and the fastest-growing franchise business — with some 110 vans operating in that country and over 50 in Britain and Ireland.

The United States beckoned as a large market filled with prospective customers who have learned to appreciate good-quality coffee. But most Americans go to fixed-location coffee shops. Would they like it if someone brought high-quality espresso-based coffee drinks (and smoothies, pastries and fruit) to them at their places of work and at special events? A year of test marketing Cafe2U in San Diego answered that question with a resounding “Yes” and confirmed management’s decision to offer franchises across America.

Equipping the mobile coffee shop 

Each franchisee purchases a Cafe2U van. In the United States, the Cafe2U management team decided on the Ford Transit Connect van as the franchise vehicle. It’s affordable, widely available and already proven in use by florists, plumbers, electricians and many other small businesses. Plus, with its relatively high roofline, the Transit Connect has all the cargo room required, while still being small enough to be maneuverable in tight spaces. Appropriately for an international business like Cafe2U, the Ford van is manufactured in Turkey and Romania.

The next step was to find a custom truck firm that could modify and equip the vans to the exacting Cafe2U specifications. Enter Cummins NPower, the distributor in the Upper Midwest for Cummins Power Generation. NPower put Cafe2U in touch with Truck Utilities of Maplewood, Minnesota, which has been customizing and servicing utility, crane and commercial vehicles for almost 50 years.

Truck Utilities delivered a prototype van precisely as specified. Cafe2U managers in the U.S. were very pleased with the quality and timeliness of this test and plan to have Truck Utilities modify some 3,000 Ford Transit Connect vans over the next several years as the nationwide rollout continues.

A crucial component: the on-board generator

The generator is an essential piece of equipment in a Cafe2U van. It has to power the coffee grinder, espresso machine and refrigerator. Cafe2U has had a great experience with Cummins Onan generators in Australia, Britain and Ireland, so it was a natural choice to continue with Cummins Onan generators in the U.S. as well. Each Transit Connect van will have a Cummins Onan 5500 gas-powered generator. Cafe2U expects that the generator will be working at about 80% capacity during the course of an eight-hour workday.

As Lee Johns, President of Cafe2U Inc., said, “Cummins Onan has been a partner with Cafe2U for eight years and has always been a proven performer, with outstanding reliability and reliable support, wherever in the world Cafe2U is working.”

Winning customers in a new country, one espresso drink at a time

Cafe2U has enjoyed rapid growth through careful planning and extensive training, and by providing quality espresso-based drinks at workplaces, as well as at special events like farmers markets, youth sporting events and vintage car rallies (http://cafe2u.com/au/videos). The company is also providing exciting entrepreneurial opportunities for its franchisees. Cummins Onan raises an Americano to toast the successful Cafe2U expansion in the United State s.

Editor note: To download this news release and high resolution photos, go to: www.cccinc.com/pr/cpp/mobile

About Cummins Onan

Cummins Onan is a brand of Cummins Power Generation, a subsidiary of Cummins Inc. Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI), a global leader that manufactures, distributes and services engines, fuel systems, controls, air handling, filtration, emission solutions and electrical power generation. Headquartered in Columbus, Indiana, (USA) Cummins serves customers in more than 160 countries through its network of 550 company-owned and independent distributor facilities and more than 5,000 dealer locations.

Urmila Ramakrishnan
Chef Shack co-owners Carrie Summer (L) and Lisa Carlson (R)

Twin Cities food trucks Vellee Deli andChef Shack are two of the best in the country, according to a new ranking by food website The Daily Meal.

Chef Shack, one of the Twin Cities’ pioneering food trucks, was No. 10 on the 101-truck list. Pan-Asian/Mexican-flavored Vellee Deli was ranked No. 84.

The Daily Meal considered 450 vendors from more than 40 cities, ranking them by Twitter and Facebook followings, reviews, originality and menu innovation concepts.

A New York truck, The Red Hook Lobster Pound, got the No. 1 ranking.

>Click here to see the full list

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2013/06/13/two-twin-cities-food-trucks-named-best.html

In just a few years, food trucks have flat-out invaded downtown St. Paul during lunch hour in the warmer months.

For the adventurous eater, this is good news. Options range from Indian to Japanese to Latin to burgers. But there are so many options it can be difficult to make a decision, so I’m here to help.

Here are the 10 trucks I’m digging the most right now, but with new street food popping up all the time, my list is sure to change next week.

There are food-truck gatherings two days a week on Kellogg Boulevard: Wednesdays near Wabasha Street and Thursdays near Robert Street. On other days, the trucks tend to congregate at Mears and Rice parks.

All the trucks on my list frequent downtown St. Paul with some regularity. Most entrees at the trucks hover in the 6-to-10 range. Plan to spend more if you order sides or drinks. Most trucks take credit cards.

The best way to know which trucks are on the street is to follow them on Twitter or Facebook or follow @tcstreetfood on Twitter, which aggregates and tweets a daily list of which are parked where.

AZCanteen: Veal tongue sandwiches and goat burgers might push us Minnesotans a little out of our comfort zones, and that’s the point. “Bizarre Foods” host Andrew Zimmern’s truck proves that expanding your protein picks is a delicious idea. Everything on the menu is good, including the tart Jamaican hibiscus punch. Twitter: @azcanteen; website: azcanteen.com

Cafe Racer: This newbie to the street-food scene is churning out tasty Latin food. I haven’t sampled the whole menu yet, but the juicy pulled pork, nutty rice and interesting carrot souflee I have eaten assure that I’ll go back for more. Twitter: @caferacermn; website: caferacermn.com

Cajun 2 Geaux: Chef Tim Glover grew up in Louisiana, and eating his red beans and rice and po’boys and jambalaya is like taking a trip to the Big Easy. He also fries beignets to order. His son often takes your order, and there’s nothing like a little Southern family togetherness to make you feel at home. Twitter: @Cajun2geauxTim; website: cajun2geaux.com

Fork in the Road: The BBQ pulled-pork grilled cheese is a monster sandwich, and the masses can’t get enough of it. The combination of Texas toast, tangy barbecue sauce, caramelized onions and American cheese is the ultimate street-food comfort food. The truck also serves such fun sandwiches as molten meatball sliders and a rocking Asian noodle salad, which would be perfectly refreshing on a hot day. Twitter: @forkNroadtruck; website: forkintheroadtruck.com

Hola Arepa: Last summer, this truck used to park in front of Ecolab Plaza every Monday, and I couldn’t stay away. Now, it hits St. Paul less frequently, sometimes joining the Wednesday food-truck court. I’ve tried nearly all the arepas, which are Venezuela’s answer to the taco: delicate, griddled corn cakes, split and filled with tasty meats, crunchy vegetables and inventive sauces. Fillings change frequently, but I’ve liked everything I’ve tried. Twitter: @holaarepa; Facebook: facebook.com/holaarepafoodtruck; website: holaarepa.com

Hot Indian Foods: This colorful recent addition to the street-food scene already is making a splash. Choose from four Indian curries to fill what owner Amol Dixit, who charmingly takes orders street-side, calls Indurritos. Curries are joined by basmati rice and a crunchy slaw for a portable Asian lunch. Can’t decide which to try? Get a flight — three tacos, each filled with a different meat or vegetable-based curry. For me, it’s a toss-up between the spinach paneer and the chicken tikka masala. Twitter: @hotindianfoods; Facebook: facebook.com/hotindianfoods; website: hotindianfoods.com

Neato’s: Three words: duck fat fries. That said, the truck’s nicely seared, lunch-size burgers nestled in pillowy buns are nothing to sneeze at, either. If you’re feeling daring, give the jalapeno popper burger a try — the combo of peppers, cream cheese and raspberry preserves is a party in your mouth. Twitter: @neatosburgers; website: neatosburgers.com

Potter’s Pasties: Perfect for our cold, wet spring, these filling, handheld pies feature such inventive fillings as Thai vegetable or pork and apple stuffed into a flaky crust. There’s also chicken potpie or a traditional meat and potato for the less adventurous among us. Twitter: @potterspasties; website: potterspasties.com

Sassy Spoon: This truck’s slogan is “Wholesome food with attitude,” and owner/chef/registered dietitian Tamara Brown serves diet food that doesn’t make you feel deprived. My favorite, the Hungry, Hungry Hash, is shredded vegetables seared on a flattop that have just a little bit of addicting char, topped with andouille sausage and a runny fried egg. Twitter: @sassyspoontruck; Facebook: facebook.com/SassySpoonTruck; website: sassyspoontruck.com

Vellee Deli: If you like it spicy, Vellee Deli is a sure thing. I have a hard time choosing between the Chicken Currito, a combination of Thai coconut curry chicken, rice and potatoes, and The Mojo, a zippy lemongrass and ginger sausage topped with papaya and pico. Vary the heat level depending on your preference. I usually go with two of three available “kicks” of Thai chile, which is enough to leave my lips burning and nose running. Twitter: @velleedeli; Facebook: facebook.com/velleedeli; website: velleedeli.com

http://www.menafn.com/cea7f332-81bd-430b-9cac-059341763281/Food-trucks-on-roll-St-Paul-our-10-favorites–so-far?src=main

Paulette Bakery parks outside City Center in Minneapolis on Monday and Wednesday mornings.

Introduce yourself to the Indurrito at newcomer Hot Indian Foods, where the burrito meets creative Indian flavors (there’s a rice bowl version, too), tailored for meat lovers, vegetarians and vegans. Chef Janene Holig also plays around with other portable fare, including seasoned popcorn and Limca, the Indian lemon-lime soda. Look for the saffron-tinted vehicle.

www.hotindianfoods.com, @hotindianfoods

At Melch’s Meat Wagon, owners Kent and Brenda Melcher grill up a wide variety of jumbo, lavishly topped burgers (beef, pork and chicken), all served on pretzel-style buns. Snacks? Fried smelt and onion rings.

www.melchsmeatwagon.com, @MelchsMeatWagon

Each weekday morning, Janna Gustin rises well before dawn and bakes croissants — plain, chocolate, almond, ham-Gruyère — in the kitchen of an Uptown restaurant, loads them in her cheery yellowPaulette Bakery truck and heads to downtown Minneapolis, selling them from 7 to 10 a.m. to a growing clientele. It’s a classic food lover’s tale: After her last trip to France, Gustin couldn’t find croissants that reminded her of those she devoured in Paris, so she set out to make her own. After 12 trial-and-error months, she hit upon the right golden, flaky formula, and then friends urged her to share her talents via the food-truck business. As for Paulette, “she’s my alter ego,” said Gustin with a laugh, explaining that the name is an affectionate nod to Paul, her favorite Parisian pâtisserie and boulangerie. “What better way to pay homage to Paul than with Paulette?” she said. “I just hope Paul doesn’t come over here and sue me.”

www.paulettebakery.com, @PauletteBakery

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/dining/210492271.html

Facebook/HotIndianFoods
Hot Indian Foods Truck cruises through St. Paul, serving Indian food with a contemporary twist.

As food truck season arrives, St. Paul welcomes a new and vibrant food truck to their collection: Hot Indian Foods, a truck with a contemporary take on traditional Indian food.

According to Jess Fleming at The Pioneer Press, the cart opened last week and can be spotted on local streets with its hard-to-miss large logo of a young Indian woman and bright orange paint. The owner, Amol Dixit, started and currently operates the business.

At age 38, Dixit hopes to bring Indian food to the masses. He views Indian food as an up-and-coming genre, and wants to promote the traditional Indian flavors through the means of fun and creative street food. Being Indian-American himself, he enjoys the Indian food and culture the food truck promotes. However, he does not cook himself. Instead, he strictly runs the business, hiring chefs to do the cooking.

The food truck is known for their “Indurritos,” a curious take on how Indian dishes are usually served. The “indurritos” consist of curry, rice, and slaw then wrapped in a tortilla.To accompany the “indurritos” fries in Indian seasoning and Indian soft drinks are available.

The truck is active on both Facebook and Twitter.

http://www.thedailymeal.com/hot-indian-foods-truck-opens-st-paul

Korean beef tacos; ham, apple, and fontina cheese sandwiches; wood-fired pizza topped with prosciutto and arugula — all available from a food truck near you.

Mobile food vendors have come a long way from the purveyors of yore serving up cellophane-wrapped sandwiches to line workers on their lunch break. Today, in a trend that’s taken hold nationwide, many food trucks cook fresh, creative fare. More than a dozen mobile vendors can be spotted around metro Detroit, selling everything from beignets to pierogi.

Metro Detroit’s food-truck scene got off the ground just last year. For some businesses, the truck is an expansion of a brick-and-mortar operation; for most, it’s a low-cost way to incubate a concept. The number of scheduled rallies, where multiple trucks host an event together, is about double this year over 2012, and individual trucks can also be found at farmers markets and public events.

The local movement can be traced in part to Scott Steigerwald and Carl Patron, friends who, facing retirement and seeking a project, started Ned’s TravelBurger in 2011 and formed the Michigan Mobile Food Vendors Association in January 2012 to ensure proper licensing and inspections for participating members.

“We didn’t know much about the restaurant business except that restaurants have, like, an 85 percent failure rate,” Steigerwald says. “So we decided to investigate the mobile-food industry. We found a truck, made it beautiful, and started serving food.”

Ned’s TravelBurger serves 7-inch-long sandwiches, made from Michigan grass-fed beef and buns baked at Holiday Market, out of a 1946 aluminum Spartan Manor Trailer.

Shortly after getting started, the duo connected with Daniel Gearig, who, with his wife, Lindsey, was busy rolling out El Guapo Grill, which serves quirky Mexican food (like those Korean beef tacos), and the Mac Shack, which specializes in some imaginative takes on macaroni and cheese.

Patron and Steigerwald invited him to join the MMFVA, and more trucks and carts soon followed, including Green Zebra (gourmet sandwiches and salads), Jacques Tacos, People’s Pierogi Collective, Concrete Cuisine (creative comfort food), and Franks Anatra (hot dogs and sausages).

Shortly after forming, the group approached Shelly Mazur, market manager at the Royal Oak Farmers Market, about holding a rally in the building.

“We were hoping for 500 to 800 people,” Mazur says. “More than 4,000 showed up.”

“That was the beginning of the food-truck rally movement,” Steigerwald says. The association began holding the rallies monthly at the Royal Oak Farmers Market (you’ll still find them there every second Wednesday), and anywhere that would have them.

Many food truck owners bring decades of experience in the food industry. Green Zebra’s owners used to work in catering at Forte and Holiday Market; Concrete Cuisine’s owners are culinary-school graduates and veterans of the Lark and Marriott; the owners of Corridor Sausage, which just debuted a food truck, met while working at the Whitney.

Gearig, a former caterer to film and video sets, is now manufacturing the trucks, and says he’s motivated by his own love of street food, cultivated during global travel.

“I’ll never forget my first day in Bangkok — outside my hotel window I saw a little soup cart,” he says. “I paid $2 for pork ball soup and sat across the table from people who could not have been raised different from me, and it was great. I wanted to bring that to Detroit.”

Whether you’re fresh to the food-truck scene or a seasoned street-food eater, you’ll enjoy sampling who’s new (or nearly new) this year.

Hamtramck-based Beignets, owned by Michele Pearson and Mark Hausner, draws inspiration from the food of New Orleans, a frequent destination for the duo. (Beignets, a French pastry, took hold in Louisiana in the 18th century.)

“When we were out in New Orleans in the late hours, there was this place you could always go and get some beignets and coffee, 24 hours a day,” Pearson says. “We thought, wouldn’t it be great to have something like that here.” They spent a couple of years perfecting their recipe, and it’s paid off. Already the truck is luring patrons from up to an hour’s drive away.

Corridor Sausage, which began in 2009 selling its concoctions to restaurants and at farmers markets, debuted a food truck, Grindhouse, in early May. Co-owner Will Branch says the company wants to serve a product that you can’t find anywhere else. “When we started, we knew we’d have an Italian and a brat,” he says, “but we also wanted to do a Thai curry and a Vietnamese sausage, too. Not necessarily traditional sausage flavors, but big flavor combinations that carry through in sausage.”

Rollin Stone Wood Fired Pizza is the work of Jim Combs, who turned his love of homemade pizza into a mobile unit, serving up wood-fired pies that cook in a copper-mosaic-tile-wrapped oven in just 90 seconds. Rollin Stone serves up a Neapolitan-style pizza, ordering its flour directly from Italy. “Our goal is to use the best ingredients,” Combs says. “Once people taste the quality and freshness of our food, they want more.”

The Pho Truck is Gearig’s latest creation. Pho is a Vietnamese dish made of broth, rice-based noodles, herbs, and meat, usually beef or chicken. Gearig has been selling pho on the Mac Truck and says it routinely sells out. He also plans to open a bricks-and-mortar pho joint in Detroit. “The Pho Truck will reflect the heart and soul of a southeast Asian food truck,” Gearig says. “We want to keep it very simple and all about the food.”

http://www.hourdetroit.com/Hour-Detroit/June-2013/The-Truck-Stops-Here/

Food Truck
Photo: Carlos Gonzales, Star Tribune

The Second Annual Minnesota Food Truck Fair is coming up next month, as I see in the Star Tribune. I can get gassy at the chassis of such vehicles as the Gastrotruck, or order something called a Bangkok burrito at the World Street Kitchen truck.

The variety, and mobility, of today’s comestibles causes me to shake my head and wait for the inevitable harp glissando, signaling the start of a nostalgic reminiscence …

The Scandinavian neighborhood where I grew up in southeast Minneapolis, during the years when Clellan Card gave us “Axel’s Tree House” and Charlie Stenvig reinvented the Keystone Kops, was not a happenin’ place when it came to food and drink. Lawry’s Seasoned Salt was used only on syttende mai, and if you really wanted to push the envelope, you put a slice of onion on your hamburger.

Otherwise, everything had to look and taste like mush — no spicy fripperies or fusion trumperies, thank you.

The idea of a truck tooling around to serve a meal was considered … was considered … well, by yumpin’ yimminy, it wasn’t considered at all!

The closest you could come in concept was the drive-in, which remained reassuringly anchored in one spot, but to which you could, in extremis, drive your car for a meal. Ordering takeout or a pizza was also about as distasteful to the neighborhood’s adult mind-set as swallowing your snoose.

Drive-ins had French fries, and as a child I could not get enough of those cholesterol hand grenades. I begged my mother to make French fries at home, but she didn’t think it a proper food for the household — it was an exotic treat best left to the trained professionals at the drive-in. Especially those crazy crinkle-cut fries she saw in the freezer at Red Owl — that was just asking for trouble. You’d probably get your lips cut off by trying to eat such things.

My fiendish child mind, little less repugnant than Professor Moriarty’s, was constantly trying to figure out ways to force my family out of the house, and into the welcoming arms of the nearest, French-fry-serving establishment. One way was to hide my mother’s cigarettes.

This had to be timed just right. If it were done too early in the day, she would just murmur a few irritable cuss words and walk down to the corner grocery store for another pack of Alpines. If too late in the day, she would have already started dinner and would not abandon it. But if it were timed correctly, she would let her nicotine craving build until it burst like a thunderclap over the head of my innocent father when he walked in the door, home from work, for something that likely had happened fifteen years earlier:

“Who was that blonde I saw you with on VE day? And DON’T say your cousin from South Dakota again!”

The tempest would soon blow over without any blows being struck or divorce papers filed, but it would be too late to start dinner. So dad magnanimously would offer to take us out to the drive-in. The nearest was over in St. Anthony, next to the Dairy Queen. It was called, if I remember correctly, the Three Circles Drive-In. Anyway, it featured a roof with a triangular wall that had three holes in it. I loved the French fries, and I dearly loved the ketchup served there in red-plastic squirty bottles.

There was something pungent, fermented, about that ketchup — probably due to the fact that the bottles were kept out in the direct sun all day and never given a thorough washing. It is my mature opinion that the stuff was turning into tomato wine. Be that as it may, I always ordered the same thing — a hot dog and French fries. The fries came in a big, greasy waxed-paper bag the size of a hat.

Now, you would think that since the Dairy Queen was right next to the drive-in, we would go there after our meal for a tasty dessert. Not so. My dad gladly sprang for the meal out, but he would be boiled in oil before he’d spend an extravagant nickel buying ice cream cones from another drive-in when we had ice cream back home in the freezer! You might as well give all your money to Henry Wallace, then drive straight to the poor farm and get it over with.

So off to home we’d go, where a lump of plain vanilla ice cream would be dumped in a bowl for each of us kids, while mom and dad proclaimed the glories of watching your pennies — and I would be wishing they’d both drop dead and leave me all those pennies so I could go back to the darn Dairy Queen and order the biggest hot fudge sundae in recorded history.

Today my parents, my old neighborhood, that old mind-set, are no more. I’ll probably blow a wad at the Food Truck Fair on pig wings, fried dill pickles, and a host of other odds and ends. Then I’ll amble over to the Ben & Jerry’s truck for a dollop of sassafras and paw-paw gelato.

It strikes me that our current milieu is one where eating at home is equated with extreme poverty or suspicious isolation. Only shut-ins and crypto-terrorists stay home to eat. The rest of the world is driving around, either looking for someplace to eat, or offering something to eat.

Our homes may grow substantial — and, strangely, we are calling them McMansions — but all we can manage to do is snack in them.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/208891541.html

Breakfast tacos were on the menu at Lulu’s Local Eatery, a St. Louis food truck, that sets up Saturday mornings at the market in Tower Grove Park. The tacos Ñ $3.50, or $6 for two Ñ are flled with chorizo hash, tofu scramble, homemade salsa, arugula and homemade chipotle sour cream.
Maureen Houston

ST. LOUIS — Food on the go has a different meaning to Robbie Tucker and Lauren “Lulu” Loomis. The couple own and run Lulu’s Local Eatery food truck, a mobile cafe built from a used Snap-On Tool van. They pop up at hospital and company parking lots during lunch hour, as well as farmers markets, outdoor festivals and private events.

Serving solely vegan food that is locally grown and produced, their food truck sports a custom-built rooftop herb and vegetable garden that travels with them.

“We got our first harvest out of it this week,” said Robbie, 29, listing Swiss chard, kale, chives, mint, rosemary … He couldn’t remember them all, then laughed about one omission. “There’s no basil up there. It doesn’t like the wind when we’re moving.”

Instead, four raised beds of vegetables at their south St. Louis home give them an added supply of tasty greens.

“Lauren is a phenomenal cook,” said Robbie. This is their second season serving food from the truck in St. Louis, 27-year-old Lulu’s home. Robbie is originally from Chicago, where the two met eight years ago. He gave her the nickname Lulu. They married last October.

They also lived in New Zealand and Australia, where they worked on organic farms. That experience set them on the path of looking for a way to offer food that is fresh and fast without being expensive. They buy ingredients from local farmers’ markets and direct from local farms. Because all of Lulu’s food is carry-out, containers are compostable.

Their menu prices go no higher than $7. Items include Spicy Chipotle Hummus ($4), Sweet Potato Black Bean Burger, Lulu’s Lemonade Lavender Tea ($2.50) and Stuffed Avocado Boat ($6).

Robbie says Lulu’s secret recipe keeps her black bean burger from falling apart. The homemade veggie burger patty is made of sweet potato, black beans and brown rice, then served on an organic whole-wheat bun topped with homemade vegan chipotle mayonnaise, red onion and fresh greens, served with a side of chips.

“I love their Sweet Potato Falafel. I’ve eaten it here and at work,” said Patsy Miller, 47, of Webster Groves, Mo. It is $7 and is served with fresh greens and zesty tzatziki wrapped in a warm pita.

Miller was standing in line at the food truck at the Webster Groves Farmer’s Market last week. She works at Barnes Jewish Hospital and discovered the truck setting up in the parking lot for lunch two weeks ago.

“I’m not a vegetarian or anything, but there is so much flavor in what they make that no one would miss meat,” she said.

The couple’s days are long: “Lunch is only 2 1/2 hours, but we’re in the truck six to seven hours. We get up at 6:30 a.m. and even when we’re not in the truck, we’re prepping.” Sunday is supposed to be a day off, said Robbie, who put “off” in quotation marks.

Who has to climb a ladder to get on the roof of the truck and tend to the portable garden?

Robbie laughed. “We rotate who waters.”

Where’s Lulu?

To see the weekly location schedule for Lulu’s Local Eatery food truck, go to luluslocaleatery.com.

The food truck can be found:

* 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays at Tower Grove Farmer’s Market in Tower Grove Park, west of the Whitaker Theater at the Pool Pavilion

*4 to 6:30 p.m.Thursdays (weather permitting) at the Webster Groves Farmer’s Market, Gazebo Park at the intersection of Big Bend Boulevard and South Old Orchard Avenue.

The food truck is available for private events.

 With so many new — and delicious — food trucks hitting the streets of the Twin Cities each summer, it’s almost too tough to keep up. Well, fear not, we’re here to help. Here’s this week’s food truck feature!

All that really needs to be said about this week’s food truck can be summed up in three glorious words: duck fat fries.

Yes, beyond bringing the retro feel of a good ol’ fashioned drive-in to the streets of St. Paul, Neato’s Burgers has given us the precious gift of duck-fat frying, without the hefty price tag or the cross-country journey. God bless them.

They’re also having a lot of tasty fun when it comes to the classic drive-in burger on a bun. Their most popular patty, fabulously named the Mustard Tiger, features a mustard-grilled burger, duck fat fries, more mustard and a special sauce. There’s also the jalapeno popper burger and a “Hans Goober” burger, for those PB&J fans.

If the fierce flavors weren’t enough, you can feel good about the food itself — nearly everything Neato’s makes is Minnesota-made and fresh to death.

Let’s learn a bit more, shall we?

 Neato’s Burgers

Find them at @NeatosBurgers and at www.neatosburgers.com

Owner: Neal Lenzmeier and Antonio Gutierrez

Date the food truck opened: October of 2011

What kind of food do you serve? We try to do our take on a classic drive-in burger and then we try to get creative with that, little bit of fusion — we do a Mexican Elotes burger, a jalapeno popper burger. So we kind of play on the classic drive-in burger.

Price range of menu: Our cheapest item is the fries for $4, or $3 with a combo, and hamburgers start at $4 with the most expensive being $8.

Hours of operation: Usually on the streets from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays, plus special events on weekends. We’re also looking into dinner service with a couple other trucks.

What was your job before opening the food truck? Tony and I were independent contractors. So we both had restaurant experience years ago and decided to get back into with this truck.

 What made you want to open a food truck? Mostly just to be my own boss, have a creative outlet, make my own hours, which has been pretty difficult but it’s starting to pay off.

What made you want to get into the food industry in the first place? My dad was actually a chef around town in the 80s and 90s so I started to follow in his footsteps after high school. He told me to not go down that path. So I kind of got out of the back of the house, did some front of the house work in my early 20s and then left the industry around 24. I’m 31 now. I got back into it at 29.

How is the food prepared? Well every morning, we get our meat fresh from Stasny’s — a meat market on Western. They grind it fresh for us every morning. And then we get our potatoes from a potato distributor, fresh cut them every morning and fry those in pure rendered duck fat. I believe we’re the only business in town doing that. And we get all of our produce fresh every morning. So we typically don’t have food inventory. Every morning we get fresh food, cut it up and sell it all.

 How did you come up with the name? It’s actually the first part of my first name — “Nea” — and then “To” for Tony. Tony came up with that. We thought it kind of had a 50s vibe to it so we created the character Neato.

How did you decide on the menu? It was kind of up in the air, even as we were starting the truck. And then Porky’s closed down. So we kind of thought, why not pick up where they left off? There aren’t really drive-in’s like that anymore so let’s try to do that. That’s kind of where we came up with duck fat because we wanted to do animal fat the way drive-in’s used to be before vegetable oil. And you can’t really find that anymore, except for we found this duck farmer, who was really helpful and let us know all about duck fat.

 What’s your favorite dish that you serve? It’s probably the Mustard Tiger. That was kind of something we created and put on twitter, just to drum up some business one morning and it took off from there. It’s a burger patty grilled, with mustard on it, to create a crust then cheese, onions grilled in duck fat, then we put it on a bun with fries, special sauce, tomato and a little more mustard on top. That’s our best selling product. I’m also quite fond of the jalapeno popper burger, with cream cheese, grilled jalapenos and raspberry preserves. So it’s kind of sweet, salty, spicy. It all really works.

Describe your truck in one word: Retro.

What’s your craziest story from working at a food truck? Actually, last year, our first day at this food truck court, our generator started on fire towards the end of the day, so at least we got some sales in. But yeah, we looked out of our window and there was all this smoke coming out and our generator and the generator cord were on fire. So that let us put in a new generator. Every different, crazy story we have is a learning experience and I feel like we had a lot of them last year. I think we’ve replaced everything on this truck so that it will run every day but I’d say that was probably the craziest thing that happened last year.

What’s one thing you want people to know about your food truck? That all of our food is really fresh, locally sourced. We don’t go out of our way to advertise or put a bunch of buzz words in front of everything that we have. It’s just really fresh. We try to incorporate as many Minnesota products as possible.

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/05/23/curiocity-food-truck-feature-neatos-burgers/

Now under new management

Things are always changing out on those mean streets of Minneapolis, and the street-eats cuisine is constantly evolving. Trucks and trailers come and go (mostly new ones keep coming). One truck has recently undergone a change.

We recently visited Mr. Mustachio’s under the mistaken impression that they were still being operated by their original owners. Thankfully, after that story ran, the new mind behind the mustache reached out and set us straight. Nikki Townsend has been operating the truck for this season. We asked her all about what we could expect to find at this dapper vehicle.

http://blogs.citypages.com/food/2013/05/mr_mustachios_food_truck_new_management.php