Austinist

Posted on August 30, 2010 by amy

Food: Austin Daily Press – From Red River To Reality TV
By Tom Thornton in Food on August 27, 2010 3:00 PM

After spending much of 2010 giving Austin’s music lovers a much needed non-pizza or hot dog meal option on Red River, Cory Nunez and Amy Hildenbrand (along with their friend Melani Feinberg) of Austin Daily Press attempted something a bit more unconventional: a nationally televised competition against a half-dozen other food trucks and trailers from around the country. The result, The Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race, began airing two weeks ago, and at the moment, Austin Daily Press is still very much in the running. We recently called the trailer to learn more about how they began, the pitfalls of midnight deliveries, and the rigors of reality television.

Our first recollection of seeing you guys around town was backstage at Fun Fun Fun Fest in 2009. When exactly did you come to be? When did the idea start and when did the actual trailer start serving?

Cory: That was actually my very first weekend! We started the idea, I think, somewhere in October. We started messing around with the idea and we did a party for Halloween, which was our first day. Then there was Fun Fun Fun Fest, and we went in to business.

So that was truly the very beginning. Did that lead to the fact that you’re now located sort of in that DeVille and Mohawk area? Was it that early FFF experience that led to those conversations?

Cory: I think we always knew we wanted to be down there. And a friend of mine owns Club DeVille, so it kind of worked out that way. You know, where we can be there if we like.

And has the fact that the food options are definitely challenged on Red River worked to your decided advantage on that corner? It has always been something that people grumbled about – that the far end of Red River had very few decent food choices and perhaps none.

Cory: Yeah, certainly. We get a lot of business late night, just from being the only food vendor down there, but I think also that people appreciate what we do. I mean, it’s good food. We get a lot from help from word of mouth from the bartenders in DeVille and Mohawk. They’re always talking about us to their customers. We get a lot of business that way.

One thing you guys do that’s quite a bit different than a lot of the trucks is that you’ll actually deliver within a specified radius. How do you feel about that experiment so far, and do you have any interesting stories to share about deliveries gone wrong or other hi jinx?

Cory: Well, I’ve had deliveries leading to traffic tickets. Yeah, I’ve had a few of them lately. Our original idea with the company, before we even really decided we were going to do grilled sandwiches, was to do delivery. We knew that was an untapped market – meaning bartenders, because there are a lot of bars Downtown. So a lot of bartenders get hungry and can’t really leave their place of work to get food or when they are closing down. They have a lot of work to do, so by the time they get out of there, it is 3am. Everybody is closed and they can’t get food. So that was the idea. To start with that, before we even really decided on the food we were going to do. Then the sandwiches came along. Because (1) we all love sandwiches and (2) it was something that was really easy to deliver, and easy to transport without being messy.

So, it’s really more about the fact that you guys love the idea, that you know, everyone loves a sandwich, rather than something else about the ingredients or the cooking that attracted you to it?

Cory: Yeah, I think It’s pretty solid food, like pizza or hot dogs or anything like that. It’s something you can always eat.

Amy: It’s actually one thing I like about the fact that we do sandwiches is that we can change up. I mean if you get bored with the menu, you can [easily] come up with different types of sandwiches. There’s an endless supply and variety of ingredients and sauces, so we can always be putting out something different and interesting if people get tired of the same old stuff.

Have you already started to do that? Are you playing with the menu as you go?

Amy: Yeah, we started out with a basic menu of six items. We had a special that was fried meatballs with parm, mozzarella and marinara sauce and we had a comparable vegetarian one with grilled eggplant. And those two ended up being so popular that we added them to the permanent menu.

Cory: We’re always doing specials, Italians and grilled sausages and all kind of stuff like that.

How did the Food Network show happen? Did you see something and apply?

Amy: They emailed our website about a week and half after SXSW just out of the blue. They asked if this show might be something that we would be interested in. We kind of went back and forth with them. We sent them a little short video where it came down to the cart with a camera and shot what we do each night. So we sent that off, and they kind of liked it. There was whiskey, and there were sandwiches – I mean, that was it.

I know you can’t talk about the results of the show, but in an overall sense how did you find the experience? Was it fun? Was it exhausting? What did you come away with as a feeling about doing a reality program about food?

Amy: It was all of those things. It was a lot harder than we thought it was going to be. But the flip side of that is we didn’t expect to get on with the other trucks nearly as well as we did. There were a couple of other trucks that we just completely hit it off with. That definitely made the experience a lot easier to deal with.

Cory: It was a lot of fun.

Finally, what are your future hopes for Austin Daily Press? Are you happy where you are? Are you hoping to do a physical store front? What are your plans for phase two?

Amy: A storefront would ultimately be a nice thing to have and be operating. Having said that, I think we could get more mobile first, because right now we just have the trailer. We learned a lot being on the show…seeing how the other trucks themselves actually operate with moving from different spots from day to day. It would certainly be nice getting into a more mobile situation down here.

The Great Food Truck Race airs on Sundays at 9pm on The Food Network. Austin Daily Press is located on Red River between 9th and 10th Streets.

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Texas Monthly

Posted on August 14, 2010 by amy

Trailer Thursday: Austin Daily Press
posted by Megan Giller at 10:01 AM

How do you improve on a killer grilled pastrami with cheddar and horseradish mayo? Or a gyro sandwich with Israeli salad and Tabasco tzatziki? Austin Daily Press knows how. Wrap the sammy in The Onion newsprint and sell it at a bargain to late-night downtown revelers. Oh, and add a catchy little motto to the side of your trailer: “As toasted as you are.”

But we aren’t the only ones to notice this budding enterprise. Austin Daily Press is one of the seven groups competing on the Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race for a $50,000 prize. The show, which premiers on Sunday, August 15, at 9 p.m. CST/10 p.m. EST, features the businesses as they race across the country “to convince American to step outside their culinary comfort zones and try something new—from a truck.”

I sat down with Amy Hildenbrand of the Press (the other team members are Cory Nunez and Melani Feinberg) to talk about the sandwiches, the show, and the industry’s secrets.

How did you get started with the truck? Is it something you’ve always seen yourself doing, or is it a new passion?

The truck itself is a new passion, but I’ve always been interested in cooking. I learned a lot from my Granny and just watching how she did things. I always liked it from a scientific point of view, where you take these random cold ingredients and you make something completely different from them.

The main idea we had for Austin Daily Press was something that could be easily delivered, because we do deliveries out of the cart, and grilled sandwiches came up. A lot of the recipes are based on what Cory said he used to eat when he was a kid.

Do you have a philosophy behind your food truck?

Just to have fun with it. I mean, neither of us are chefs. Cory has a background in cooking for a living, and I still cook as a hobby. But we’re not trying to pass ourselves off as high-end Top Chef–type people. We blast eighties music and serve a lot of food to drunk people, mainly.

I bet the late-night crowd can be pretty rowdy. What drives you to keep serving such high-quality food to them?

We know that ultimately they’ll appreciate it. They might not be aware that they’re appreciating it, but certainly their bodies are aware that they’re getting real food. It’s like we’re helping take care of them a little bit, which is nice. And I don’t know if they just drunkenly keep the wadded-up wax paper in their pocket or something, but they remember us when they’re sober and come back.

What would you say is your favorite street food in Austin?

Kebabalicious is great. I like Best Wurst as well. I think they’re the oldest food cart in Austin, and it’s just a solid dog.

Is there a community of food trailer vendors in Austin, or even nationally?

There’s definitely a community in Austin. I think it’s the city with the second-largest population of food trucks, right after Portland, Oregon. The restrictions down here are certainly not lax, but it’s less strict than it is in other areas, like Los Angeles. So it’s a little bit easier to get into this business.

Tell us about being on The Great Food Truck Race.

The Food Network approached us at the end of March. We later came to learn that we were not just the only ones from Texas but the only ones from outside of California, period. First of all, we’re not even a truck, we’re a trailer. We were always the odd man out on everything.

It was cool to see if this concept could actually work outside of our home base, outside of the streets and the people that we knew. And on top of that, seeing if it could work during the day, during the morning, instead of late-night.

The show became sort of a lesson on how to set up a franchise in the span of a weekend. What you’d need to do to get the word out and learn if your product could sell in a completely new town.

Do you think the trailer trend is impacting the food industry in general?

Definitely. You’ve got big corporate brick-and-mortar restaurants that are putting out trucks now. A lot of people got into the trucks because it’s a much cheaper way of getting into the food industry. It doesn’t cost a quarter of a million dollars to open a food truck like it would a restaurant. But now the big restaurants are paying attention and they’re scaling back and trying to catch the public’s eye with trucks as well.

It’s not just roach coaches anymore. There are actual full kitchens on wheels. Most kitchens in restaurants are relatively small to begin with, so if you just kinda tighten it down, put, like, a submarine aspect to the organization of it, then you can do a lot in a really small space.

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The frickin’ NY Times

Posted on August 14, 2010 by amy

Food (Truck) Fight: Putting Griddle to the Metal

By JOSH EELLS
Published: August 6, 2010

GET Matt Chernus going on the subject of food trucks — those big refrigerated chuck wagons that frequent construction sites and late-night watering holes — and he could be a 6-year-old describing his favorite Tonka. “They’re just cool,” Mr. Chernus, a tattooed former professional wrestler, said the other day. “They’re big. They’re really noisy. They’re cool to look at. I drove by three new trucks in Hollywood today, and I got so excited. I was like a little kid.”

Mr. Chernus was on the phone from Los Angeles, where he has a food truck of his own: a heavy-metal-themed hamburger joint called Grill ’Em All (a pun on the title of the Metallica album “Kill ’Em All”; picture a black U.P.S. truck plastered with cartoons of Vikings and wizards, and you pretty much have the idea). “We call her the Beast,” said Ryan Harkins, Mr. Chernus’s friend, sometime band mate and business partner. “She’s beautiful.”

A few months back the two men gassed up the Beast and hit the road. The occasion was the filming of a new reality series, set to make its debut next Sunday on the Food Network, that hopes to do for food trucks what “Jersey Shore” did for tans.

The show is called “The Great Food Truck Race.” Seven specialty food trucks — home-style Cajun, fine-dining French, pressed sandwiches, Vietnamese banh mis, crepes, hamburgers and banana pudding — will set off on a six-week road trip from Los Angeles to New York, stopping along the way to peddle their grub. The teams who sell the most food advance to the next town; the losers pack up their fryers and head home. As the celebrity chef Tyler Florence, who hosts the show, put it recently, “It’s like ‘Cannonball Run’ with food trucks.”

We’re living in a food-truck moment. Thanks to a booming gastro-culture and an economy gone bust, America’s streets are filled as never before with high-quality meals on wheels. Tacos and shwarma give way to artisanal ice cream and escargot; devoted chowhounds track their favorite trucks on Twitter; and enterprising young chefs bypass storefronts for a good curb. This year Food & Wine even named one vendor (Roy Choi of the Kogi BBQ truck of Los Angeles) one of 2010’s Best New Chefs. “There’s no stigma anymore,” said Nate Appleman, the chef at the haute New York pizzeria Pulino’s (and a guest judge on “Race”), brushing aside a question about “roach coaches” and “street meat.” “For young chefs street food has a lot of appeal.”

For programmers too, apparently. Bob Tuschman, general manager of the Food Network, said he’s received dozens of pitches for truck-related shows over the past two years, more than any other topic. “Food trucks echo a lot of the themes that we as a network believe in,” he said: accessibility, affordability, what he called “a diversity of food voices.” “We definitely wanted to jump on the trend.” And the network picked this approach because of the competition, which shows what vendors really deal with daily, and the travel component, which introduces food trucks to areas where they aren’t well known.

Strictly speaking, the show is not a race. Each week the trucks roll into in a new city, where their first stop is the health department for inspections and permits. They then spend 72 frantic hours scrambling to secure parking spots, shopping for ingredients, promoting their wares (no Twitter or Facebook allowed), cooking their food and, finally, selling as much of it as possible.

“They’re basically rebuilding their business from scratch every episode,” said Brian Lando, the Food Network’s director of programming. The production crew even went so far as to search each truck before the competitions, lest anyone try and smuggle in some leftover buns.

For this first season there was no application process — only invitations. Some of the teams are relatively established, like the Nom Nom Truck, three chirpy graduates from the University of California, Los Angeles, whose Vietnamese sandwiches have graced trend articles and glossy magazine spreads. Then there are upstarts, like Austin Daily Press, three charmingly slackerish sandwich artists from Texas (motto: “As Toasted as You Are”) whose biggest challenge was adjusting to the daytime shooting schedule. “We usually work from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m.,” said Amy Hildenbrand, the truck’s chef. “Serving sober people” is hard, she said.

Veteran reality viewers will recognize familiar scenes: “Survivor”-style immunity challenges, tearful eliminations. But for the most part the story lines mirror the obstacles the trucks face in real life. Tires go flat. Generators conk out. Angry neighbors complain. Cops are called. In the first episode one truck ends up sidelined for the better part of a day because the team members forget to buy extra propane.

But by far the biggest X factor was the trucks themselves. Twenty feet long and six-plus tons, they sometimes have trouble crossing an intersection, much less the country. Mechanical issues abound. In anticipation, the producers brought along a mechanic for tune-ups and repairs. “He was a busy man,” Mr. Lando said.

Of course the most interesting breakdowns aren’t the kind that happen under a hood. “I think it’s impossible to have three people cooped up in a food truck with 100-degree heat and splattering oil and customers yelling at you, and not feel the strain,” Mr. Tuschman said. In other words: There will be beef, and not just in the burgers.

“Some of the teams definitely imploded,” Mr. Harkins said. Alliances were made, then broken; teams squabbled with other teams; teams squabbled among themselves. “You watch lifelong friendships absolutely fall apart,” Mr. Florence said. “It’s pretty hard core.”

(There were happier moments as well. The Grill ’Em All guys, for instance, grew so close to the Austin truck folks that they had each other’s company logos tattooed on their arms.)

In the end, despite all the culinary misadventures, network executives hope the show will leave adventurous viewers hungry to explore more, and perhaps even inspire a new generation of chefs.

Mr. Tuschman said he imagined a viewer who might have “a great food idea” but lacks the means to open his or her own restaurant. “Maybe they’ll think: ‘You know what? Maybe I could open a food truck.’ ”

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Relish Austin

Posted on August 14, 2010 by amy

How to make a better grilled cheese sandwich

By Addie Broyles | Tuesday, August 3, 2010, 01:45 PM

Making grilled cheese sandwiches isn’t rocket science.

At least that’s the way Amy Hildenbrand, co-owner of the grilled cheese food trailer Austin Daily Press, sees it.

Start with good bread and cheese. Add meat and/or veggies and don’t forget the sauce. Press between two hot surfaces, and you have an easy, comforting meal that, if you build it right, can taste downright gourmet.

Hildenbrand, left, along with her business partner Cory Nunez and his girlfriend Melani Feinberg, are getting ready to make their national television debut on Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race,” which premieres on August 15. The show, hosted by Tyler Florence, follows seven food trailers on a competition-filled road trip across the country.

Ahead of the series, Hildenbrand gave us some tips on making your own out-of-this-world grilled cheese sandwich.

If you’re making a sandwich with more than two slices of cheese, you’re probably going to want to press it with heated elements on both sides or else the middle isn’t going to get hot and the sandwich will just fall apart. “A $40 sandwich press from Target works just as well as a $300 one from Williams-Sonoma, and you can pick up cat food at the same time,” she says.

Buttered bread works just fine, but mayonnaise on the outside will give you a deeper flavor and crispier crust. For a real taste-explosion, try clarified butter or ghee. Hildenbrand: “It’s like freebasing butter.”

(An old trick leftover from my own childhood: Garlic salt on the outside of the bread.)

Hildenbrand says it’s important to layer the ingredients correctly from both slices of bread to the middle. Smear mayo, mustard or any kind of sauce or dressing (just about any salad dressing or spread will do: ranch, honey mustard, Italian, vinaigrettes, tapenade or even cream cheese) on the slices, then add cheese and keep meat and veggies in the middle. “Cheese helps seal the sandwich together,” she says.

“You have to have enough cheese to stand up against the bread,” she says. At Austin Daily Press, they use about six slices for the thick French bread, but sandwich bread can only withstand about two slices, maybe three.

We all know the usual suspects (Cheddar, Monterrey Jack for cheese, ham for meat), but just about any cheese will work. Feta, fresh mozzarella and provolone are a few of Hildenbrand’s favorites.

French bread works best because the soft insides absorb the extra liquid and flavors. Things get messy if you use pita, tortillas or flatbread, but you can get away with using an English muffin or a bagel if you heat up the bread slightly to soften it before making the sandwich.

As for meat, don’t stop at lunchmeat. Try meatballs cut in half or leftover steak or roasted chicken cut up into small pieces.

Raw tomatoes, white onions, pickles and strong greens such as arugula or spinach add texture as much as flavor. (Potato chips are another way Hildenbrand likes to add texture to a sandwich. Just make sure they are hearty kettle chips or else they will dissolve into the cheese.)

Grilled vegetables take a little more effort because you have to cook the veggies before making the sandwich, but this is where leftovers can come in handy. “With grilled vegetables, you want some bite to them, but it’s less about how you cook the vegetable than it is about finding the balance,” Hildenbrand says.

“You don’t want two inches of grilled squash between two slices of bread. It’s just like making a regular meal, you don’t want to overload on one particular part of the plate.”

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Austin American-Statesman

Posted on August 14, 2010 by amy

‘Great Food Truck Race’ Austin team dishes on the show

By Peter Mongillo
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 6:44 a.m. Friday, Aug. 13, 2010

It’s a steamy Saturday night, and Austin Daily Press is open for business in the Club de Ville parking lot at Red River and Ninth street. The generator that powers the setup growls loudly, drowning out any soft voices. With the air conditioner broken inside the small trailer, Amy Hildenbrand is red from the heat as she gingerly slices bread and cheese for two sandwiches.

Compared with a lot of people hanging around Red River clubs, Hildenbrand, in a black T-shirt and jeans, looks fairly conservative. She talks, as she places the sandwiches onto a hot press, about how sometimes she can predict whether it’s going to be a busy night based on what kind of concert is happening.

“The heavy metal fans will eat,” she says with a smile.

Recently, Hildenbrand, along with her partner Cory Nunez and Nunez’s girlfriend Melani Feinberg, had the chance to hone her ability to read customer appetites on the road as one of seven food trucks competing for $50,000 on the Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race,” which premieres tonight. The show, an “Amazing Race” of sorts for foodies hosted by Food Network personality Tyler Florence, tests the businesses’ ability to sell their wares in cities across the country, starting from scratch in each location.

Getting picked to compete came as a bit of a surprise for the Austin Daily Press team. They had only been operating for a few months before the show’s producers invited them to take part in late March, as they were still recuperating from working long hours during South by Southwest. In April, they hitched their trailer to a pickup belonging to Hildenbrand’s uncle and made their way to Los Angeles.

When they got there, they realized they were the only team not based in California. In fact, with the exception of a team from San Francisco, all of the other competitors operated in the Los Angeles area. Nunez says that geographical differences put them at a disadvantage. Unlike Austin, where food trailers often will find permanent locations in empty lots, Los Angeles trucks tend to park in a new location each day, a skill at the heart of “The Great Food Truck Race.”

“You can say we were the underdogs,” Nunez laughs.

Being the underdog doesn’t seem like the type of thing that bothers the sandwich-slinger, however. A Georgia native with a few tattoos and a light goatee, Nunez moved to Austin a little over three years ago with the idea of owning a hot dog truck with his brother-in-law. After a few false starts, Hildenbrand, whom Nunez had met through a family friend and who had recently returned home to Texas after living in New York City for several years, bought out Nunez’s brother-in-law. Austin Daily Press was born.

The pair did not have much direction at the outset. The one thing they did know was that they wanted to be able to deliver their food to nearby bars. “We didn’t really have a game plan; we didn’t really know what kind of food we were going to do; we didn’t really have a name for the business,” says Nunez. “The original idea was just finding something we could deliver.”

The slogan on the Austin Daily Press logo reads, “As Toasted As You Are.” Indeed, the menu, a variety of grilled cheese sandwiches made that much more tempting with extras such as pastrami or meatballs and marinara, is perfect for the concert-goer hungry after a few PBR’s at the Mohawk. With their delivery service, which consists of an old red mountain bike, they are also able to bring their food to the drinkers, as well as hungry bartenders.

Because “The Great Food Truck Race” required that they purchase new supplies in each city, Hildenbrand and Nunez were not always able to replicate their sandwiches on the road. Being forced to improvise their menu was just one of many challenges the team faced. Hildenbrand describes the routine of the game in somewhat Sisyphean terms.

“You’re dealing with finding your way around in a new city, figuring out where you want to go, trying to get to a store that’s still open, buying food and then taking it back and prepping it, and then trying to find a spot to sell it, then actually trying to sell it,” she says.

This emphasis on the business side of the food world sets “The Great Food Truck Race” apart from other food-focused shows. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether a certain dish is well-cooked or presented in a creative way — the team with the most money wins; the team with the least goes home.

All of this is not to say that taking part in the show was all work and no play. Nunez, Hildenbrand and Feinberg became friends with many of their competitors, including the Grill ‘Em All team, a “heavy metal” hamburger truck. “They were hilarious guys,” Nunez says, showing off the Grill ‘Em All logo he got tattooed on his forearm during the show.

As for the future of Austin Daily Press, Nunez and Hildebrand say they would like to eventually open a more permanent location in a storefront somewhere downtown. Nunez acknowledges that is not something that will happen overnight, however. “It’s not a business you get into to make money,” he says. “If you want to make a living, you can probably do it, but if you don’t enjoy it, it’s not something to get into.”


pmongillo@statesman.com

‘The Great Food Truck Race’
9 p.m. Sunday, August 15
Food Network

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The Tasting Buds

Posted on August 14, 2010 by amy

Austin Daily Press of “The Great Food Truck Race” Interview
By Peter Tsai – August 9, 2010

Foodies, chances are that you have spent time on the couch watching a Food Network show or five. Well get ready, because you’re about to get one more reason to park it in front of the TV, namely Food Network’s newest show “The Great Food Truck Race” premiering Sunday, August 15th 2010 at 10pm/9c.

One of the teams that competed in the coast-to-coast race runs hometown food trailer Austin Daily Press. I stopped by to chat with fellow Atlanta transplant now living Austin and co-owner of Austin Daily Press, Cory Nunez, about his favorite bars in Atlanta, the upcoming Food Network show, and his approach to running a business.

Things were moving along briskly at Austin Daily Press when I showed up. Delivery orders were coming in and walk up business from both the Mohawk and Club De Ville was strong. Though he and Amy were busy grilling sandwiches for customers, a laid back Corey found time to chat with me, take some pictures, and yes… kick back a Lone Star.

Here’s the interview:

Q: Who are you and what inspired you to open Austin Daily Press?
A: I’m Cory Nunez and my partner is Amy Hildenbrand. Melani Feinberg is my girlfriend who works with us on events, festivals and TV shows. We knew there was an untapped market for late night delivery so Amy & I started the business with that idea. Grilled sandwiches became the answer to easily packaged and delivered food with minimal mess. We both loved the idea and product so we went for it.

Q: How was the filming of the ‘The Great Food Truck Race’ and what do we have to look forward to on the show?
A: The Great Food Truck Race was a lot of fun. Every single day was a different sort of challenge, but it was definitely something we would do again in a heartbeat. There will be some really funny moments of confusion and disastrous brilliant ideas. Every team had to basically make a new menu and marketing plan for every day of sales. It’s interesting to see what everyone comes up with on a tight budget in a foreign place and almost no time.

Q: I see that you have linked to the other competitors on your website – was there much of a rivalry during the show or were you all friendly with each other?
A: We did not expect to like any of the other competitors at all but most of the teams were really amazingly talented and cool people. Every team really fought to win this but when the sales day was over we all met at the hotel bar.

Q: What was your favorite moment during filming?
A: The whole taping of the show was a great experience. Tyler Florence was actually a really cool guy (you never know with celebrities) so hanging out with him was one of my highlights for sure.

Q: The Austin Food Cart / Truck scene is getting more and more crowded each week. Do you think it’s a fad or do you think Austin can sustain the food carts for the long term?
A: We have only been doing this since November so my opinion isn’t the best here. It’s nice to see people making and selling really interesting food out of carts, and more people are starting to respect and understand that there are real chefs and cooks behind these ventures. However, average tacos and burgers with mediocre ingredients won’t make it in this city anymore. I think the cart scene will slowly weed out the less genuine and less motivated cart owners. This is not a business you get into to make money. If that’s your goal, to get rich from slinging hot dogs or grilled cheese, you’re in for a rude awakening. With good products and a lot of hard work you can make a living doing this. For most of us out there, that is enough.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about running the business and what is your biggest challenge?
A: It’s a great feeling to own your own business, regardless of size of profit. I love hanging out downtown at the cart, throwing back a few beers, listening to the music we like and selling bad ass sandwiches at a good price. With this being the restaurant business, there are always challenges. The thing I’ve learned in my tenure in this business is that something will always break, something will always get fixed and business will always go on if you just keep showing up. Spend enough time with anyone and you will disagree on something you already agreed on. I guess the most challenging thing for me and Amy is not overthinking and reworking this simple idea we came up with that works. There may or may not be growth in our future with this venture but only time will tell. Pushing growth before you’re ready most certainly ends in empty bank accounts.

Q: Why food delivery? Are there any unique challenges associated with that?
A: “Delivered to your barstool” was the key idea before we even knew we wanted to do grilled sandwiches. I had bar tended around town for a few years and it always drove me nuts that there was no GOOD late night food close by or within delivery range, and with about 150 bars in the downtown area it seemed like a no-brainer to make feeding these professional enablers a priority. Amy came from New York, where every bar without a kitchen has a massive binder of delivery menus just waiting to keep the patrons inside and drinking. The only challenge we crossed while getting going was how to get their attention. So we just started bar-hopping, having a few beers and passing out menus. After about three weeks and 15 hangovers we finally had a good account base, and it’s only grown from there.

Q: What would you say is your most popular item?
A: Most popular item… probably the Pastrami, with sharp cheddar cheese and horseradish mayo (a childhood favorite of mine), or the Gyro and feta with Israeli salad and Tabasco tzatziki.

Q: What other restaurants do you frequent in Austin?
A: Always a fan of The Woodland on South Congress and Frank downtown. Also, Melani and I really love Olivia. We don’t have a lot of time to go out but we hope to have more soon.

The TastingBuds are looking forward to the show and we’re glad to have chatted with both Amy and Cory before they “hit the big time.” Hopefully the show does great things for them and takes them to new levels of success.

For more information about Austin Daily Press, go to their website or follow them @AUSdailypress on Twitter.

Thanks and Happy Tasting,
Peter

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Real press

Posted on July 12, 2010 by amy

FOOD TRUCKS ‘RACE’ TO CONQUER THE HOTTEST NEW TREND

Tyler Florence Hosts Cross-Country Culinary Journey in ‘The Great Food Truck Race’

Premieres: Sunday, August 15th at 10PM; Post-Premiere Timeslot: Sundays at 9PM

NEW YORK – JULY 12, 2010 –Amazing chefs across the country are leaving traditional restaurants behind and hitting the streets in mobile kitchens serving some of the most unique and delicious dishes ever tasted. Food Network’s new primetime series, The Great Food Truck Race, features seven such gourmet food trucks as they embark on an epic coast-to-coast culinary road trip to convince Americans to step outside their culinary comfort zones and try something new – from a truck. Tyler Florence hosts this six-episode competition premiering Sunday, August 15th at 10pm ET/PT; the series resumes in its regular timeslot of Sundays at 9pm ET/PT on August 22nd. From out-of-the-box sandwiches, burgers, and crepes to unique takes on Vietnamese, French, and Cajun cuisines, the trucks compete in weekly challenges to see who can sell the most food and race to the next episode while the losing team drives home. The last truck standing wins a $50,000 grand prize.

“Not only does the series focus on a hot new culinary trend, but the drama of the competition pushes these teams’ cooking skills, business savvy and relationships to their limit,” said General Manager/Senior Vice President Programming, Bob Tuschman.

The seven trucks include: Austin Daily Press (Austin, Texas), Crepes Bonaparte (Fullerton, Calif.), Grill ‘Em All (Los Angeles, Calif.), Nana Queens (Culver City, Calif.), Nom Nom Truck (Los Angeles, Calif.), Ragin’ Cajun (Hermosa Beach, Calif.), and Spencer on the Go (San Francisco, Calif.). Click here for team bios.

In the premiere, the teams meet Tyler in Los Angeles, the center of the food truck revolution, and the race begins with the teams’ first game-changing twist known in each episode as the Truck Stop challenge: Instead of starting in Los Angeles, the race commences in San Diego. To even the playing field, the teams begin with empty trucks and an equal amount of seed money. They have three days to prepare, promote and sell their food by any means necessary. After a weekend of triumphs, teamwork, and tests of character, the totals are tallied and the trucks find out who continues the great race and who goes home. New twists and turns arise as the race continues through Santa Fe, N.M.; Ft. Worth, Texas; New Orleans; Jonesborough, Tenn., and concludes as the final two trucks race to the finish line with through the hungry streets of New York City’s five boroughs. Guest chefs throughout the season include: Tim Love, Jacques Leonardi, Eric DiStefano and Nate Appleman. The Great Food Truck Race is produced by RelativityREAL, LLC.

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FOOD NETWORK (www.foodnetwork.com) is a unique lifestyle network, website and magazine that connects viewers to the power and joy of food. The network strives to be viewers’ best friend in food and is committed to leading by teaching, inspiring and empowering through its talent and expertise. Food Network is distributed to more than 98 million U.S. households and averages more than 9 million unique web users monthly. In its first year Food Network Magazine doubled its rate base and passed the one million circulation mark. Headquartered in New York, Food Network has a growing international presence with programming in more than 150 countries, including 24 hour networks in Great Britain, India, Asia and Africa. Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE: SNI), which also owns and operates HGTV (www.hgtv.com), DIY Network (www.diynetwork.com), Great American Country (www.gactv.com) and Cooking Channel (www.cookingchanneltv.com) is the manager and general partner.

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Posted on July 12, 2010 by amy

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