The Peached Tortilla by Eric Silverstein

Author:Eric Silverstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling Epicure

Humble Food Truck Beginnings

In late July 2010, Kris and I arrived in Austin, after driving two days from St. Louis. We had found our apartment online and knew little about the area we were going to be living in, and neither of us had any friends or family there. It occurred to us that there wouldn’t be much of a support system if things started to veer off the planned path.

I had two months to get the business open. One of the first things I did was hire a chef, because I was completely focused on all the aspects of setting up the business: forming the company, getting all my investors to sign the operating agreement, funding the company, leasing the truck, wrapping the truck, finalizing our website, creating a route for the truck, hiring staff, etc. I gave the chef an outline of what I wanted the menu to look like, and he went to work.

Before we had our official grand opening, we ran a “soft opening” shift to test ourselves. I told a friend at Dell® that we would bring the truck nearby and she could invite forty or more of her friends to come and eat for free. The shift ended up being a complete disaster: forty-minute ticket times, chaos on the line, confusion on how to build certain items, etc. I quickly realized that although the chef I’d hired was capable of developing great flavors, his preparation in general was poor. It was almost as if he had been out of the game too long and had forgotten how to run a kitchen.

He didn’t prep the line in time for the shift to open or set up his mise en place fully, and he didn’t train his line properly. If we were going to make a success of the opening, I knew I was going to have to really push and micromanage the chef, which I shouldn’t have had to do, given his salary and level of experience.

I was also very green at running a kitchen. My commercial kitchen experience was extremely limited and the learning curve, I realized, was going to be steep. I didn’t know kitchen terminology, like what a “quarter pan” or a “half pan” was. This was all information I needed to pick up fast if I was going to fix our problems and improve our overall systems.

We officially opened on September 25, 2010. We parked the truck in back of a bar on West 6th Street. This was going to be our weekend night location, where we would serve dinner and feed the late-night crowd. We had a great showing for the opening, with lines twenty to twenty-five people deep. Kris came and brought some of the friends she had made in Austin. For a split second, life was good. I had made it to Austin, and we had met the timeline of opening our doors within sixty days.

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