KENT SIEVERS/THE WORLD-HERALD
The Barbeque Barn, parked near 90th and Ohio Streets, is not only Mike Trickler’s source of income; it is what gets him through the day. His biggest cheerleader, his wife Chris, died in December and she would want him to keep going.

Mike Trickler refers to himself as an artist. While some prefer oils or pastels, Mike favors brisket and ribs, showcasing his craft at The Barbeque Barn, an Omaha food truck. His masterpiece, a brisket sandwich, is dubbed the “Haystacker.” It’s a marriage of Mike’s beef and sauce with wife Chris’ crunchy coleslaw.

Trickler sees his barbecue — like this “Haystacker,” with pulled pork and cole slaw — as an art form.

“It’s a true artisan sandwich,” Mike said. “From the very beginning to the very end, it’s my hands (making the sandwich).”

The Tricklers opened The Barbeque Barn in April 2011 after the 55-year-old Mike, a trucker for more than 20 years, retired from driving.

It has, however, turned into way more than a job. It’s welcome income. But it’s also a way to keep memories alive, to give him purpose.

It’s a way to honor Chris, the woman who inspired him to start the business and pushed him to keep it running when she no longer could help.

It’s his legacy to his wife of 29 years, who died of cancer in December.

After taking time off from truck driving, Mike decided not to go back — he felt like he had lost his niche as a trucker. So his wife suggested that he take advantage of the thing he knew best: barbecue.

Mike got his first crack at the art of smoking meat in Spokane, Wash., in 1985, when a coworker introduced him to smoked trout. From there, he devoted himself to the hobby — one that took him decades to master.

“When I first started, I could’ve made a pair of boots out of that meat,” he said.

But Mike steadily got better. He fashioned his first smoker out of a 1948 Frigidaire refrigerator, knocking the compressor off the top and punching a pair of holes in its place, and started studying barbecue books and experimenting.

He worked his way up from a family recipe for beef jerky to the finer art of brisket and ribs.

Five years before launching his business, Mike found a dusty white bread truck for sale near 72nd and L Streets. It was essentially picked clean except for the chassis and the raccoon living inside.

He intended to put in a 6-cylinder motor from a Ford pickup and resell the truck, but his wife convinced him otherwise. Why not use it as a food truck?

So he got to work.

Over the next few years, he fixed, cleaned and converted the truck. He enlisted some of his and Chris’ seven children to help.

Kelly Lane, a son from Chris’ first marriage, did electrical and plumbing work on the truck. Lane estimated that he spent 80 hours or so helping, a minuscule number compared to the hours Mike logged.

“It was a long process,” Lane said. “He got discouraged quite a few times and it sat for a while. Then he’d get some encouragement and it would go again.”

Lane said his mom thought it never would be finished, “but when it got done, she was very supportive.”

Mike Trickler, the owner and operator of the Barbeque Barn, shows a photo of his wife, Chris, who succumbed to cancer in December.

In April 2010, Chris convinced Mike to open up for business.

They had coleslaw, baked beans and meat all ready to go, but they needed to tie it all together.

On opening day, Mike created both his regular barbecue sauce and his Carolina-style vinegar sauce in less than an hour, primarily on instinct. The same day, he invented the Haystacker.

“The first day he was in there, he was like a chicken with his head cut off,” Lane said. “Everything was so overwhelming to him, but he was so happy.”

The truck became a mainstay in the Harbor Freight Tools parking lot near 90th and Maple Streets before moving last year to its current home at Goodies gas station near 90th and Ohio Streets.

At first, Chris spent a lot of time helping Mike at the truck, gradually easing him into independence while she focused on her job as a manager for the Metropolitan Utilities District.

“As soon as she saw that I was quite capable of running it on my own, she let me handle it,” Mike said.

But through it all, Chris was an inspiration. With a degree in management from Bellevue University and her work experience, she helped her husband become an outgoing salesman.

Without her help, Mike said, he would have been lost.

“It took me three months just to break out of my shell. I was a loner,” he said.

Chris first was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1993. She fought and it went into remission. The cancer returned in March of 2012, attacking her lymph nodes.

Mike’s biggest booster, the person who encouraged him in his struggle to create a business, now needed a boost herself.

Doctors discovered Chris’s cancer after inspecting a tumor in her lower back on her birthday. They advised her to undergo chemotherapy, but she refused at first because of the cost.

Just like Chris motivated Mike to start the food truck, Mike helped motivate Chris once he convinced her to begin treatments.

But Chris got worse. Mike spent more and more time with her and less on the truck.

“It didn’t bother him that he wasn’t with the Barn, because he was with my mom,” Lane said.

Chris insisted that her husband remain committed to the barbecue business they had worked for almost a decade to perfect. If he quit, they’d lose everything they worked for for so long.

So Mike called an old friend.

Tony Miller, a carpenter who met the Tricklers in Spokane in 1978, flew to Omaha with three days notice on Nov. 14 to help run the truck. Mike, who once dated Miller’s sister in the 1970s, gave him a place to stay in his basement and a crash course on barbecue. Miller agrees with Mike’s assessment that smoking meat is a creative pursuit.

“There’s an art right there that he has,” Miller said.

KENT SIEVERS/THE WORLD-HERALD
Mike Trickler says his wife was his inspiration through it all. Chris Trickler used her management degree and work experience to mold him into an outgoing salesman. Without her help, Mike said, he would have been lost.5050

On Dec. 14, Miller took over the reins of the Barbeque Barn solo for the first time.

That day, Mike was attending his wife’s baptism.

Her battle was coming to an end. Doctors had placed her in hospice, hoping to make her last months as comfortable as possible.

Two days after the baptism fulfilled her wish to become closer to God, Chris died.

The pain she described to doctors as “13” on a one-to-10 scale had passed. The agonizing back aches and chemotherapy that had plagued her since doctors told her about the recurrent cancer now were over.

Up to the day she died, Chris had pushed him to keep the barbecue business alive. So when the fight was finally over, that’s all Mike could think to do. Miller’s still helping, though he plans to return to Spokane.

“I could sit around the house and just drudge about what happened in my life, but I’ve got to get going,” Mike said. “Nobody’s going to give you any handouts. Just keep going. It’ll get better. It’s bound to.”

The food truck has been rechristened in honor of Christine Trickler.

Support poured in to the company’s Facebook page, where Mike still signs almost every post “Christine, Tony, Mike.” Neighbors offered to lend a hand, with one even driving to Kansas City to pick up equipment for the truck, asking only for gas money.

Gestures from his customers and friends — he says they’re one and the same — amazed Mike.

“This truck is God-led,” he said. “I don’t have the smarts or the ability to do what’s been done on this truck.”

Taped inside near the serving window is a Bible verse, Hebrews 13:2: “Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.”

Mike remembers his mother picking people up off the street and feeding them on at least three occasions. He has tried to emulate that, offering a free sandwich or warm conversation.

On Jan. 4, Mike and Miller returned to their barbecue home, armed with racks of applewood smoked pork ribs. It didn’t take long for customers to catch on, though business is slower in the winter than the summer.

Aside from dealing with frozen pipes and blizzards, Mike has been out almost every day since then, barring Sundays.

“It’s been trying (for Mike),” Lane said. “Not a lot of customers would show up and he would get discouraged. Then he’d have a day where he would have a bunch of customers and he’d be on top of the world.”

While the meat changes day to day, ranging from brisket to brats and the occasional turkey leg, one thing is always on the menu: Chris Trickler’s homemade coleslaw and baked beans.

In January, about a month after Chris died, Mike and Lane put a vinyl sticker above the windshield, officially naming the truck “Mrs. Christine.”

Though Mike can’t guarantee he’ll be in the barbecue business forever, it’s the best way he can think of to honor his wife for now.

“Life just throws you a curve sometimes,” Mike said. “Sometimes you bounce back and sometimes you don’t. I’m not saying I’m gonna make it to the next week, but I’m hanging tough.”

http://www.omaha.com/article/20130204/LIVING/702049977/1707

LINCOLN — Launching a restaurant used to require the right location, a bank loan and a gambler’s tolerance for risk.

Now it seems like it takes just four wheels and a couple of Crock-Pots.

Imaginative chefs have driven food trucks far beyond the land of corn dogs and cotton candy, making mobile cuisine a popular trend on the coasts and on food television. They have been slower to arrive in the Midwest, but Omaha, Lincoln and Council Bluffs have all seen growth in food truck numbers the past three years.

That produces heartburn among some owners of brick-and-mortar restaurants, who say it’s unfair to allow a food truck to roll in and compete at a prime location the truck’s owners didn’t invest in. Those concerns have helped restrict food trucks from using public parking in the very places that could prove most lucrative — Omaha’s Old Market and Lincoln’s Haymarket and its downtown district.

So rolling chefs have had to sell their vindaloo tacos and firecracker rangoons while parked on mostly private lots. While they have to comply with the same regulations and safety inspections as any restaurant, they complain about being prevented from vending where pedestrian traffic runs highest.

“I don’t know why they want to fight us,” said Tyree Wagner, owner of Ty’s Amazing Food Truck in Omaha. “We just want to make our little money and go about our way.”

Jim Partington, director of the Nebraska Restaurant Association, said his members don’t want to prevent food trucks from finding their niche. But the trucks have two big advantages over restaurants — low overhead and mobility at the turn of an ignition key. If trucks were to put an established restaurant out of business, the larger community would take a hit in the way of losses in jobs and tax revenue.

“We have an interest in seeing that there is a level playing field,” Partington said.

Elected officials and city employees are in the middle.

Food truck operators in Lincoln, for example, have been lobbying for nearly a year to use public right-of-way. City officials say they are looking for some way to accommodate the trucks.

Omaha, meanwhile, allows food trucks to use public parking as long as they obtain a peddler’s permit, identify which spot they plan to use and get approval from the city in advance. City staff members review applications on a case-by-case basis, but won’t approve requests that are too close to restaurants — making it extremely difficult find a spot in the Old Market.

In Council Bluffs, food truck operators can park and vend from any public street. But City Attorney Dick Wade said downtown businesses have been raising concerns, which may prompt the city to review the ordinance.

The new wave of gourmet food trucks sweeping the country has produced similar turf battles in other cities, with varying outcomes.

For example, Chicago updated its ordinances last summer, making it illegal for a food truck to park within 200 feet (roughly one-third of a city block) of a restaurant. Food trucks have to install a GPS device so the city can keep tabs on them. Trucks can be fined between $1,000 and $2,000 if they roll too close to a restaurant.

In the past year in New York, the State Supreme Court upheld a law that prohibits vending from metered parking spaces. Food truck operators say the law makes it nearly impossible to find a place to do business in the city.

Los Angeles County, meanwhile, formerly used both bans and restrictions, but lifted them after a successful legal challenge on behalf of the vendors.

Bans and restrictions intended to protect the pocketbooks of one set of business owners over another smack of protectionism and are unconstitutional, said Beth Kregor, director of the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Law School, a national legal advocate for street vendors.

City governments have the right and responsibility to make sure food trucks operate safely, but it’s wrong to hamstring their ability to compete in a free marketplace, she said.

“Food trucks are classic examples of American entrepreneurship,” Kregor said. “They are starting small, they have great ideas, creative recipes and wonderful experience. What they don’t have are big budgets.”

Small budgets or not, they are growing in numbers.

Omaha, for example, has close to 20 food trucks that sell everything from burgers and tacos to jambalaya and veggie samosas, said Terri Wyzgoski, a food and drink specialist with the Douglas County Health Department.

“Two or three years ago, we had only three,” she said.

Council Bluffs has licensed six food trucks and Lincoln has about a half dozen, most of which have turned up over the past two years, said Joyce Jensen, the city’s environmental health supervisor.

The operator of Lincoln’s first gourmet food truck, Minh Nguyen, has the distinction of running the first food truck to be ticketed for vending on a public street. Because he had obtained all permits and inspections and thought he could legally park on a downtown street, the city attorney waived the citation, he said.

But he continues to seek a change in the ordinance.

While the trucks present a more affordable way to get into business, they have some inherent disadvantages, said Nguyen, who manages a truck called Heoya. Daily roaming, for example, can make a food truck difficult to find for customers who don’t use Facebook or Twitter, where truck operators often post their locations. And when rain and temperatures fall, so do sales.

Nguyen and other food truck operators argue that they meet a different need than traditional restaurants, and they can’t possibly take away customers who want to be waited on or enjoy a glass of wine with their meals.

“There’s enough pieces of the pie for everybody,” he said.

The city of Portland, Ore., reserves a lot where food trucks gather, said Kevin Page, co-owner of a Lincoln truck called A La CARTe. Page attended culinary school in Portland.

“I understand the city doesn’t want to just open it up to let us park wherever,” he said. “So give us some spot, sell us a permit and the city can make money and we can make money.”

Perhaps a city-owned lot downtown could be used for regular food truck rallies, he suggested.

It’s an idea that has merit and is being explored, said Rick Hoppe, an aide to Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler. Allowing food truck vendors to pay a fee to place a hood over a parking meter for a designated time period also has been considered.

But that could create other problems, Hoppe said. For example, if the city were to allow the trucks on public property, then vendors of other goods and services could make similar requests, Hoppe said. Think velvet Elvis tapestries and Confederate flags.

“It isn’t that we don’t want to accommodate (food trucks),” he said. “They really do contribute to the quality of life in the city.”

Wagner, the Omaha roaming chef, said he recently launched an association of food truck owners, which has half a dozen members so far. The group intends to seek better access to downtown areas, including the Old Market.

Regardless of what happens, Wagner predicted that food trucks won’t be a flash in the pan.

“The food trucks are going to come,” he said. “You can try to keep them out, but they’re going to come. The smart thing would be to work with them.”

http://www.omaha.com/article/20121029/NEWS/710299944

Sauce is drizzled on a cajun burger in Ty’s Amazing food truck as Tyree Wagner, owner of Ty’s Amazing, serves up lunch at the Hayneedle Customer Care Center, 13831 Chalco Valley Parkway on Oct. 25. KENT SIEVERS/THE WORLD-HERALD

LINCOLN — Launching a restaurant used to require the right location, a bank loan and a gambler’s tolerance for risk.

Now it seems like it takes just four wheels and a couple of Crock-Pots.

Imaginative chefs have driven food trucks far beyond the land of corn dogs and cotton candy, making mobile cuisine a popular trend on the coasts and on food television. They have been slower to arrive in the Midwest, but Omaha, Lincoln and Council Bluffs have all seen growth in food truck numbers the past three years.

That produces heartburn among some owners of brick-and-mortar restaurants, who say it’s unfair to allow a food truck to roll in and compete at a prime location the truck’s owners didn’t invest in. Those concerns have helped restrict food trucks from using public parking in the very places that could prove most lucrative — Omaha’s Old Market and Lincoln’s Haymarket and its downtown district.

So rolling chefs have had to sell their vindaloo tacos and firecracker rangoons while parked on mostly private lots. While they have to comply with the same regulations and safety inspections as any restaurant, they complain about being prevented from vending where pedestrian traffic runs highest.

“I don’t know why they want to fight us,” said Tyree Wagner, owner of Ty’s Amazing Food Truck in Omaha. “We just want to make our little money and go about our way.”

Jim Partington, director of the Nebraska Restaurant Association, said his members don’t want to prevent food trucks from finding their niche. But the trucks have two big advantages over restaurants — low overhead and mobility at the turn of an ignition key. If trucks were to put an established restaurant out of business, the larger community would take a hit in the way of losses in jobs and tax revenue.

“We have an interest in seeing that there is a level playing field,” Partington said.

Elected officials and city employees are in the middle.

Food truck operators in Lincoln, for example, have been lobbying for nearly a year to use public right-of-way. City officials say they are looking for some way to accommodate the trucks.

Omaha, meanwhile, allows food trucks to use public parking as long as they obtain a peddler’s permit, identify which spot they plan to use and get approval from the city in advance. City staff members review applications on a case-by-case basis, but won’t approve requests that are too close to restaurants — making it extremely difficult find a spot in the Old Market.

In Council Bluffs, food truck operators can park and vend from any public street. But City Attorney Dick Wade said downtown businesses have been raising concerns, which may prompt the city to review the ordinance.

The new wave of gourmet food trucks sweeping the country has produced similar turf battles in other cities, with varying outcomes.

For example, Chicago updated its ordinances last summer, making it illegal for a food truck to park within 200 feet (roughly one-third of a city block) of a restaurant. Food trucks have to install a GPS device so the city can keep tabs on them. Trucks can be fined between $1,000 and $2,000 if they roll too close to a restaurant.

In the past year in New York, the State Supreme Court upheld a law that prohibits vending from metered parking spaces. Food truck operators say the law makes it nearly impossible to find a place to do business in the city.

Los Angeles County, meanwhile, formerly used both bans and restrictions, but lifted them after a successful legal challenge on behalf of the vendors.

Bans and restrictions intended to protect the pocketbooks of one set of business owners over another smack of protectionism and are unconstitutional, said Beth Kregor, director of the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Law School, a national legal advocate for street vendors.

City governments have the right and responsibility to make sure food trucks operate safely, but it’s wrong to hamstring their ability to compete in a free marketplace, she said.

“Food trucks are classic examples of American entrepreneurship,” Kregor said. “They are starting small, they have great ideas, creative recipes and wonderful experience. What they don’t have are big budgets.”

Small budgets or not, they are growing in numbers.

Omaha, for example, has close to 20 food trucks that sell everything from burgers and tacos to jambalaya and veggie samosas, said Terri Wyzgoski, a food and drink specialist with the Douglas County Health Department.

“Two or three years ago, we had only three,” she said.

Council Bluffs has licensed six food trucks and Lincoln has about a half dozen, most of which have turned up over the past two years, said Joyce Jensen, the city’s environmental health supervisor.

The operator of Lincoln’s first gourmet food truck, Minh Nguyen, has the distinction of running the first food truck to be ticketed for vending on a public street. Because he had obtained all permits and inspections and thought he could legally park on a downtown street, the city attorney waived the citation, he said.

But he continues to seek a change in the ordinance.

While the trucks present a more affordable way to get into business, they have some inherent disadvantages, said Nguyen, who manages a truck called Heoya. Daily roaming, for example, can make a food truck difficult to find for customers who don’t use Facebook or Twitter, where truck operators often post their locations. And when rain and temperatures fall, so do sales.

Nguyen and other food truck operators argue that they meet a different need than traditional restaurants, and they can’t possibly take away customers who want to be waited on or enjoy a glass of wine with their meals.

“There’s enough pieces of the pie for everybody,” he said.

The city of Portland, Ore., reserves a lot where food trucks gather, said Kevin Page, co-owner of a Lincoln truck called A La CARTe. Page attended culinary school in Portland.

“I understand the city doesn’t want to just open it up to let us park wherever,” he said. “So give us some spot, sell us a permit and the city can make money and we can make money.”

Perhaps a city-owned lot downtown could be used for regular food truck rallies, he suggested.

It’s an idea that has merit and is being explored, said Rick Hoppe, an aide to Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler. Allowing food truck vendors to pay a fee to place a hood over a parking meter for a designated time period also has been considered.

But that could create other problems, Hoppe said. For example, if the city were to allow the trucks on public property, then vendors of other goods and services could make similar requests, Hoppe said. Think velvet Elvis tapestries and Confederate flags.

“It isn’t that we don’t want to accommodate (food trucks),” he said. “They really do contribute to the quality of life in the city.”

Wagner, the Omaha roaming chef, said he recently launched an association of food truck owners, which has half a dozen members so far. The group intends to seek better access to downtown areas, including the Old Market.

Regardless of what happens, Wagner predicted that food trucks won’t be a flash in the pan.

“The food trucks are going to come,” he said. “You can try to keep them out, but they’re going to come. The smart thing would be to work with them.”

http://www.omaha.com/article/20121029/NEWS/710299944/1685