These popular Alabama restaurants started as food trucks
Many enterprising chefs have found success behind the wheel of a food truck, but what happens to those trucks when the road to success leads to a brick-and-mortar building? It all depends, said three Alabama restaurateurs with food-truck origins.
For Von Larson, chef and owner of Von’s Bistro in downtown Mobile, a food truck was the ticket to her dream.
A native of Laos, Larson grew up in Bayou La Batre, where she and her family worked in the local seafood industry and where she was exposed to an array of cuisines, from Southeast Asian to Southern. In 2012, Larson began to bring those eclectic tastes together in her hometown at her first restaurant, a converted diesel machine shop.
“A year later, I bought a food truck because I wanted to spread my name,” she said. The truck also introduced new customers — from ship builders in Bayou La Batre to office workers and foodies on Mobile’s Bienville Square — to her dishes. It was such a hit, she and her husband, Paul, soon decided to open a restaurant in Mobile.
“We grew a following with the food truck,” she said, and operating it taught her to “think outside the box.” But her dream was to have a real restaurant where she could create made-from-scratch, locally sourced dishes, blend and bend gastronomic genres and make what she calls “food I want to eat.” Thus, Von’s Bistro was born, and the faithful food truck went into semi-retirement — it still rolls out for special events.
Zebbie Carney, on the other hand, still operates his business, Eugene’s Hot Chicken, from the same food truck that launched his Birmingham hot chicken dynasty.
Carney is a Nashville native who moved to Birmingham more than a decade ago to work as a chef at J. Alexander’s. In 2015, he left the corporate kitchen behind to sell his own version of his hometown favorite, Nashville-style hot chicken, out of a food truck named Matilda.
Business, like his chicken, was hot. By 2016, Carney opened a small takeout restaurant in Uptown Birmingham, which also served as the hub for his food truck enterprise. He then opened a second storefront in Hoover this year. This combination of brick-and-mortar and mobile options proved valuable when COVID-19 hit.
“Before COVID, we were going mostly to office buildings,” he said. Within a week after the shutdown, however, Matilda and a second food truck were rerouted to residential neighborhoods helping deliver food to front-line workers while the two stores were open for takeout and delivery.
Now, as some people go back to work and others stay home, Carney’s food trucks remain flexible and able to respond.
TexMex-inspired Fire & Spice Smokehouse in Huntsville also began its culinary journey in a food truck aptly named Big Bertha. “She’s the biggest truck in Huntsville,” said LeAndra Poux, co-owner with her husband, Thomas, of Fire & Spice.
The Pouxs met Bertha in 2015, just days after moving to the Rocket City (LeAndra’s hometown) from Texas. They initially borrowed her to test the food truck waters, but soon bought Bertha outright and set to work developing Fire & Spice’s brand.
By 2017, the Pouxs had established a brick-and-mortar restaurant where they could offer more items and get creative in the kitchen, a space where they’re able to develop and refine new dishes to add to their menus. The restaurant has also become a “ghost kitchen,” a virtual kitchen where they can create and sell specialty items, such as their Heavenly Sinwiches (gourmet sandwiches), for delivery or carryout.
According to LeAndra, the pandemic poses many challenges for restaurants and food trucks alike. “It’s a scary time, but we are going to continue to try everything,” she said. And Big Bertha makes them more agile. “You can always change a food truck concept,” she said.
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