By Brady Mallory | KeloLand.com

SIOUX FALLS, SD – You do not have to drive to some of the newest restaurants in Sioux Falls, because they will come to you.  Food trucks are becoming a common part of the Sioux Falls vernacular.

“I got a cow!” Jessica Safstrom yelled as she put a ‘Cow Jumped Over the Moon,’ a slow-cooked roast beef sandwich, on the counter.

As she serves up order after order, she has a pretty unconventional message for her customers: Bite Me.  Yes, you will see these words, the name of her business, emblazoned on the side of her big red food truck.  As people visit Bite Me Mobile Bistro, they are not taking it as an insult.  In fact, they seem to be sinking their teeth into food trucks.

“When I used to go to the bars I used to see food trucks outside, which is a cool idea.  Now it’s cool to see them in the day,” Aaron Buse said as he held the pork sandwich he ordered.

“We saw it on facebook today and made a special trip out here just to eat here,” Jim Jensen said.

Jensen drove by a lot of restaurants.

“Yeah, even my own restaurant. The Fry’n Pan on 41st,” Jensen said.

Bite Me Mobile Bistro has what Safstrom called ‘down home cooking,’ including crowd-pleasers like loaded nachos and pork sandwiches. Items like parmesan meatball sliders and portobello mushroom sandwiches add a gourmet flare to an otherwise simple truck.

“I grew up in a home where my mother made about two things. When I was ten she taught me how to make them so she didn’t have to anymore.  A lot of cereal suppers, so no, it definitely didn’t come from my mother,” Safstrom said.

Safstrom wanted to take her cooking hobby to the next level.  She has done catering, but this mother did not want to be tied down to a traditional restaurant.  That is what brought her to this eatery on wheels.

“And then I saw boop, boop, boop, they all cropped up and I went, ‘You beat me! You beat me to the punch!’” Safstrom said.  “I’m excited we’re all out there.”

Curbside Diamond, Look’s Market Food Truck, Mobile Munchies and Curb Belly are other trucks serving fresh and local flavors in Sioux Falls.

The idea of a food truck certainly is not new if you go to cities like Chicago, Los Angeles or New York.  They are, for many people in this part of the Midwest, very new.  From May to August, more food trucks seemed to be emerging. According to the Health Department, there are 16 licensed mobile food vendors in Sioux Falls.

There is a drawback to this hot trend; the even hotter weather.  Even though Bite Me Mobile Bistro was out, Curbside Diamond and Look’s Market both took the day off.  Triple digit temperatures and cooking in a small space aren’t everyone’s idea of a good day at work and can be a safety concern.

Though she had nothing but nice things to say about the other food trucks in the area, like the name of her business and the tattooed pin-up girl she uses as her logo suggest, Safstrom has a sense of humor.

“What’s a little heat anyway!  Seriously, what’s a little heat!” Safstrom said.

It is proof that even with an unconventional restaurant, the tradition of good-natured competition is always on the menu.

Menus change daily, so we have included links to each truck’s Facebook page within the story.

http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/food-trucks-hot-summer-trend/?id=136541

By Deb Holland | RapidCityJournal.com

Tim Nevadomski prepares Bourbon St. Chicken inside his Curbside Cuisine cart at the Black Hills Farmers Market in Rapid City on Saturday, July 23, 2011. Nevadomski's food cart includes a grill, deep fryer, mini oven and refrigerator. photo credit - Aaron Rosenblatt/Journal staff

Tim Nevadomski has been preparing for his current career all his life.

His dad owned an Italian restaurant, and he began working at the family restaurant when he was 12. He found jobs in restaurants while in college and has worked for three national restaurant chains in his adult life.

“I swore when I was younger that I wouldn’t end up working in a restaurant,” Nevadomski said.

Well, he was partially correct. The food truck he now owns isn’t technically a restaurant; it’s a restaurant on wheels.

Nevadomski said he loves the concept of food trucks. So, when his wife, Susan Olsen, sold her coffee shops in Rapid City, he began planning his new career path.

“We had saved some money in anticipation and were hoping this would be a good jumping-off point,” he said.

He announced in April on Twitter his culinary intention — “Rapid City’s first food truck coming soon.”

The first day of business for Nevadomski and his Curbside Cuisine & Catering was June 23 in Rapid City at 1350 Concourse Lane, just west of ASI.

Nevadomski admits business has been slow, but he has gained a following on Facebook and Twitter. And those faithful fans follow his posts — and the truck — all over town.

“I stalk him on Facebook,” said Nicole Jaeck, who recently found “Curbie” (Nevadomski’s nickname for his food truck) at the Black Hills Farmers Market. Jaeck grew up at Huntington Beach, Calif., and enjoyed the gastronomic delights of food trucks there before moving to Rapid City.

“I’m obsessed with food trucks,” she said. “I love the innovative way they take things that we may hesitate combining and make them into

yummy things we want to eat.”

At the Farmers Market, Nicole and her husband, Tory, enjoyed Curbside’s jambalaya quesadilla — a tortilla filled with Cajun rice, andouille sausage, shrimp, vegetables and cheese — along with bread pudding croquettes.

They both rolled their eyes and shared a moan of approval after tasting the food.

“These are amazing,” Tory said of the fried bread pudding balls.

Nicole said she was won over to Nevadomski’s food when she ate the Napa sliders.

“I talked about them for days after,” she said. “I like knowing what’s  in my food. And, these had such amazing flavors.”

But Nicole was stumped as to how Nevadomski created such flavor in his little burgers.

Nevadomski says he starts with ground beef infused with feta cheese, then adds sauteed onions and spices. The burgers are served on a yeast roll with a tomato-basil aioli and fresh spinach. He strives to make a culinary statement with each creation on the menu, providing layers of flavor.

Janet Labonte of Rapid City ordered the mini potato pancakes with a sour cream/dill dipping sauce from Curbside while her husband, Mike, enjoyed the breakfast pizza.

“It’s crispy and has lots of flavor,” Janet said.

Nevadomski’s menu items came from a focus group gathering. He invited family and friends to their house for a trial run of service from the food truck. They gave the attendees a survey sheet to gauge their attitudes about the food.

From there, they honed the menu they offer at their stops around Rapid City.

Since the trial run, Curbside has settled in to weekly appearances at the Black Hills Farmers Market and near Rapid Spa on Wednesdays and Fridays. He has set up shop at the West Boulevard Summer Festival and Hills Alive, and he caters.

Nevadomski did research about food trucks  before deciding to buy a used truck from a distributor in Florida. The truck was a blank slate in the interior, so Nevadomski worked with the company to build the kitchen right for him.

“I based it on what my menu mix was going to be and how many guests I thought I would be serving in an hour,” he said.

The 22-foot truck has a 16-foot by 8-foot kitchen complete with full-size fridge, sink, prep table, fryer and flat-top grill.

The propane-powered kitchen also has a salamander broiler, which he uses to give his flatbread pizzas and other items a professional-looking browning at the end of cooking. Salamanders have overhead infrared heating elements that impart very high heat.

Nevadomski said he still fights the ignorance of some customers who only equate restaurants on wheels with county fair foods.

“We’ve had people come up and ask if we have funnel cakes,” he said. “We’re more high-end than that.”

For more information, call 381-1156, email curbsidecuisine@gmail.com or go to www.curbside-cuisine.com.

Brady Douglas, co-owner of Phantasy Franks, sets up his hot-dog stand in Art Alley on Thursday, July 21, 2011. Douglas and his business partner, Kyle Comes, said their business has suffered because the city let one person snap up 10 of the 12 permitted locations for hotdog carts. (Ryan Soderlin/Journal staff)

Rapid City is considering changes to its sidewalk vendor program to prevent one person from monopolizing the sale of street food, cut flowers and nonalcoholic beverages downtown in the future.

The city Planning Commission discussed the current city ordinance at its meeting Thursday in response to staff concerns that the implementation of sidewalk vending has not stayed true to the intent of the original proposal.

After two years of receiving no requests, the city this year has awarded 10 of the 12 available fixed vendor locations to local businessman John Ashley, who said he plans to rotate one hot dog cart among all of the spots, starting Monday.

“There were some holes there that we just didn’t anticipate,” planning manager Vicki Fisher said. “As a result of that, we had an individual, Mr. Ashley — he took advantage of that ordinance as he should or could.”

Suggested changes include limiting the number of cart locations one person can amass, setting an expiration date for the location-specific permits and establishing rules for sites that are permitted but go unused. The Rapid City Council approved the original ordinance creating a sidewalk vendor program in 2009 and would have to approve any changes recommended by the Planning Commission.

Commissioner Steve Rolinger said that while he agrees there are some issues, the city will have to tread lightly if it decides to make any changes to the rules.

“I’d rather have somebody there that’s using it, not someone who’s moving a cart from place to place to place, but he’s done everything legally,” Rolinger said. “If we’re going to be putting any rules together, we need to have some legal advice here on what we can actually do and accomplish.”

The current ordinance requires sidewalk vendors to get both an annual operating license from the City Finance Office, which involves a background check and proof of a state food license, and a separate permit for one of the city’s 12 pre-approved locations they plan to operate in.

Only one cart is allowed per location, and vendors must carry a $2 million insurance policy for each location they have a permit for. Location permits expire only if a vendor does not renew his or her annual operating license or if that license is revoked.

Ashley, who has had past issues with the city over the condition of motel properties he owns in North Rapid, said that in his opinion, the best way to operate the program would be having all of the locations available to everyone every day on a first-come, first-serve basis. But with the ordinance written the way it is, he said he did what he thought he needed to do to have a successful business.

“I have no intent of not using the sites. I wouldn’t have paid $250 each to just not use it. I’m not going to do it like a domain name and just sit on it. My intent is to use them,” Ashley said. “I’ll be moving site to site.”

To date, Ashley said, he has invested about $15,000 in his hot dog business, including $2,500 to secure the 10 city permits.

But the operators of another hot dog cart said the fact that the city let Ashley snap up all but two approved locations for carts has hurt their business, which targets the late-night bar crowd. The Phantasy Franks food cart operates in the private parking lot between the 445 Martini Lounge and the Gambrill building on Main Street from about 10 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.

“I’ve really suffered, I think, because of our location,” said Brady Douglas, co-owner and operator of Phantasy Franks. “I can’t be out where the people are. I see the people every night. I’m seeing them walk across downtown. I know they’re all hungry people, but I’m not able to really get their attention or sell anything to them because I don’t have a hot dog spot.”

Of the 12 city-designated locations for food carts, the only two remaining are on Kansas City Street. Douglas said they have looked into having the city designate a new sidewalk spot for them at the corner of Main Street and Mount Rushmore Road, but the state won’t allow carts on its right-of-way. Mount Rushmore Road is also U.S. Highway 16.

Ashley, who will be operating his cart during daytime hours, said sharing a location with Phantasy Franks isn’t really an option, given the insurance requirements of the current ordinance.

“Even if I want someone else to use the location, if they didn’t have the policy for that location, I would be responsible,” Ashley said. “If the city would waive the insurance, yeah, I would probably have no problem with that whatsoever.”

Growth Management Director Brett Limbaugh said he hopes to bring forward more detailed suggestions by the next commission meeting Aug. 4.