Our first week... trial by fire

Our official first day of operations in the truck was incredible.  It's one thing to open a business on an ordinary day with a usual amount of traffic, it's a totally different experience to open at a huge festival with tens of thousands of people coming for one thing- to eat food from trucks and carts of all kinds.
We did a test run earlier in the week to make sure everything was working and running properly.  Good thing we, because the oven wasn't working! Fortunately it was just a safety valve that had to be reaplced.  Below are a few pics from our test run and our first day at the Columbus Food Truck & Cart Festival:

 A few little monkeys hanging out in the monkey truck:

We finally managed to get the oven going and made a few pizzas:

A Huge turnout to this event!  We sold out and had to close temporarily to restock.  

We had soo much fun.  And we learned a LOT from this experience.  We still have a few more tweaks and a new paint job before she is totally complete. 

Our September Calendar:

Weds, 8/31: Columbus Commons Lunch on the Lawn

Saturday, 9/3: We'll be parked at Brothers Drake Meadery for Bike the Cbus during the day and later for Gallery Hop

Fri Sept 9 thru Sun Sept 11: Hot Times Festival 

Saturday, Sept 17th: Independents' Day Festival

Thurs, Sept 29th: Cask Tapping at St. James Tavern

Food Truck Sundays Sept & Oct at Franklin Park Conservatory

The Monkey Truck makes it debut 8/24 & 8/26/2011

It's been several months of hard work and dedication, including a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and...a broken foot. We are excited to announce that the truck has passed its health inspection and we're ready to start bringing healthy local goodness to the streets of Columbus!
Our Big Debut comes next week Friday at Columbus Commons for the Food Truck & Cart Festival 2011.  Prior to that, we will need to do a few test runs in the truck to make sure we're ready for this big event.  That means we will be GIVING AWAY FREE FOOD & DRINKS!!!!!  Yes, giving away.  Why?  Because it takes several days for our official license paperwork to go through, we cannot actually sell food until that happens.  But we can certainly give it away!
Wednesday afternoons at Global Gallery are "Fresh Wednesdays."  In addition to live music and local food carts, there's a couple of farmers market vendors, as well as a CSA pick up at the parking lot.  We've decided that this upcoming Fresh Wednesday will be our Giveaway Day!  We've got some awesome new smoothie and juice recipes to try, and we'll also be serving up some new pizzas, fresh from our pizza oven in the truck!  The fun begins this Wednesday, August 24th, from 4pm until we run out.  We'll be giving out coupons throughout the day along with FREE PIZZAS, JUICES, & SMOOTHIES!
**Special Note: You will likely see me hobbling around on my awesome new crutches on Wednesday.  In the process of building, I fell from the roof of the truck and broke my foot.  The good news is I survived and I was lucky to have only broken my foot!  (it's pretty high up there, in case you didn't know.)  The bad news is that the broken foot has set us back a bit financially, and while the truck may be done on the inside, we are not yet done on the outside.   So, please don't judge a book by its cover!  It may be a bit ugly outside until we can get the funds to finish the paint job, but rest assured the food that comes from the inside is totally made with  tons of love and goodness.    We hope that in a few weeks the truck will be completed from head to toe.  When it is, it will look like this:

Nacho Pizza, it's MY Pizza! (And it's vegan)

In honor of Columbus's best festivals at Goodale park this year, I have decided to come up with this very special pizza: NACHO PIZZAA!!!!
It all came to mind after trying out a different kind of vegan cheese, called Teese.  Teese is made by the fabulous Chicago Soy Dairy Co.  I was at the Clintonville Co-Op one day and I spotted a package of the Spicy Nacho teese marked down, so I picked it up on a whim and made nachos with it later that night.  It was soo good I had to find a way to incorporate it into my pizzas.  Thus, nacho pizza was born.

We started with our whole grain pizza crust, and topped it with some Yves soy crumbles.  While I'm not a huge of fan of fake meat products, this one does a pretty good job of looking and tasting like real ground beef:

On top of the "beef" goes some nice grilled veggies- bell peppers, onion, and sweet corn straight off the cob.

Then comes the nacho "teese", followed by some lovely diced tomatoes and jalapenos.  And then, finally,

A little local crunch on top: CaJohn's stone ground tortilla strips!

The finished product.  Yum!  We'll be serving these up all weekend long at Pride Fest and Comfest, so bring your appetites with you down to Goodale Park this weekend and next!