Thursday, September 27, 2012

Nampa Food Truck Rally


NAMPA FOOD TRUCK RALLY!!!
Saturday, September 29th from 4-8pm
Lloyd Square, corner of Front & 14th St
 
This will be the last one this year so come join the fun!
 
Several food trucks will be there
Live Music from The Flavors
Beer & Wine

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

August Food Truck Rally

Join us on Saturday, August 25th at Lloyd Square for our NAMPA food truck rally from 5-9pm!!  We will have several food trucks and carts from the Treasure Valley.  There will be a beer garden and
Vale Winery will be showcasing some of their great wines. See you there!! Lloyd Square is located at 14th Ave S and Front Street, downtown Nampa

Thursday, July 26, 2012

We are at the Canyon County Fair!

Come join us at the Canyon County Fair July 26-29, 2012.  We will be located back by the stage
in the Simplot Stadium area.  Come find us and enjoy some great food.  Chef Bristol has done it again!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Nampa Food Truck Rally

Join us on Saturday, April 14th at Lloyd Square for the first NAMPA food truck rally from 5-9pm!! Archie's Place, Brown Shuga Soul Food, RiceWorks and B29 Streatery will be serving fantastic food.  There will be a variety of Idaho microbrews from Payette Brewing Company, Crescent, Crooked Fence and Sockeye.  Syringa Winery will also be showcasing some of their great wines.  See you there!! Lloyd Square is located at 14th Ave S and Front Street, downtown Nampa

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

A Fond Farewell...

Greetings my truckin' brethren,

It is time for me to say goodbye. It has been a rollercoaster year and I truly appreciate all the good times and antics that I was able to experience. I have been offered the Executive Chef position with a restaurant group in Boise and have accepted the position beginning April 1st. No, I am not giving any hints. If all goes well, there will be some sort of press release thingy around the 1st of May. If not, I moved to Thailand and will be leading the genre of pirated first run movies.

I leave you in good hands. Chef Dustan Bristol of Brick 29 Bistro will be taking a more active role in the truck's activities. We have applied for a great many of the summer events, including the Idaho Beer Festival, Canyon County Fair, Western Idaho Fair, Art in the Park, Eagle Island Days, Hyde Park Street Fair and a plethora of other events. All your favorite items will be there for your enjoyment.  My last hurrah will be the Treefort Music Festival this weekend at The Linen Building.


For private parties, caterings and whatnot, the best contact info is still b29streatery@gmail.com.  This email will be checked and replied to regularly.  We are currently in the process of streamlining and simplifying our booking process to get ready for the summer.


If you are in dire need of the limited entertainment value that I present, I will continue my blogging and twittering ways on the following: Twitter: glamm808 - Email: glamm808@gmail.com - Blog: To Be Determined.  Gotta check with the new owners of this fine property (me) if they want a fully sanctioned chef blog. Otherwise I will be blogging on the Downlow.  That's what it's called when you only have 40 followers.  I will probably be back on my personal Facebook since it will no longer be categorized as work.
Thank you again for everything and I hope to see some familiar faces at my new digs.

Greg Lamm, Former Anonymous Truck Blogger

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Today's Blog is brought to you by the letter "I"

Howdy Truck FANatics!

So, it's blogging time again.  At the last truck rally, I was accused, in a playful manner, of writing incendiary comments on the blog.  I am not normally one for hindsight or introspection but this got me thinking: am I becoming a negative Nancy in my writing?  I looked through my assorted meanderings and there was a reoccurring theme of reactionism.  The blog has become where I could publically air all my grievances. 

This came about for a few reasons - If someone thoroughly torqued me off I could respond in a manner befitting my rank and station as a chef - anonymously and in a larger context of a social setting.  This is in lieu of grabbing said customer, dragging them through the window and immersing in the deep fryer until their feet stop kicking.

Also, I work better through a medium.  If given the opportunity, I make great food.  I can write with some level of skill.  I am even decent on TV and Radio.  In person, unedited, I tend to come off as aloof and arrogant.  Probably because I am.  I have spent the last twelve years of my life working a minimum of 60+ hours a week either manning or captaining modern era pirate ships.  This is not the environment to build social graces.

The final reason is that as every newspaper knows, righteous indignation and an inflammatory topic sells.  Unicorns and rainbows just don't cut it.  Even the Carebears got cancelled.  I may only have a handful of readers but I want them to be interested and involved in the topic.

That being said, this blog is about saying thank you. 

First and foremost:  Payette Brewing Company - Mike, Jake and Sheila - you guys are awesome.  Since the very beginning you have been the single greatest driving factor for food truck success in Boise.  You hosted our Grand Opening, have food trucks out at your tasting room every week and are just generally great human beings.  Everyone who was attended and enjoyed the Food Truck Rallies owe Payette Brewing their gratitude.  The truck operators don't organize these things.  We don't have time.  P.B.C. has taken it upon themselves to organize and advertise these events and do a fantastic job.  Thank you from the bottom of my dried out, wrinkly black heart.  If any of my followers have NOT been out to the tasting room, make it a destination.  Did I mention they have beer?  And food trucks?  And TV? 

Boise Weekly:  Boise Weekly, I know we have had our ups and downs, which culminated in me e-ssassinating one of your staffers.  But you still deserve a huge cyber hug from myself and all the food truck operators in town.  Without your willingness and backing of all the trucks, our exposure wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today.  Boise Weekly does a massive ad for the food truck rally once a month and pushes the trucks to the public.  Your efforts have made a huge difference in not only our business, but all the trucks in town.  Thank you.

Radio Boise:  Another huge supporter of the Food Truck Rallies.  Thank you for everything and the massive, redonkulous generator.  If we ever need to jumpstart Lucky Peak Dam, that thing should do the job.  Thank you for being supporters of the trucks and of independent life in Boise as a whole.

Traditional Press:  Thank you to the Idaho Statesman and the Idaho Press Tribune.  I appreciate you jumping into our corner.

Don't forget all the locations that have hosted trucks and truck rallies.  Idaho Foodbank, Random vacant lot on Grove, Red Lion Downtown, North End Nursery, Random vacant lot #2 on Chinden, thank you for letting us set up and party.

And the most important thank you of all:  To all our customers, repeats and new alike.  Thank you.  Thank you for taking a chance on a "Grilled Cheese" with pulled pork.  Thank you for eating out of a truck at all.  It would make my life a lot easier if I had a defined demographic to campaign to, but that's the crazy thing: I don't.  Our customer base spans generations and a broad economic spectrum.  It was very confusing and humbling to be so off in the estimation of who would eat at a truck.  So thank you for your business, and I hope to see you back.  Whether it is at one of our many summer events or a food truck rally, we appreciate your support and couldn't do it without you.

Good "I" words:
incendiary
inflammatory
introspection
indignation
interested
involved

And we now return to our regularly scheduled Negative Nancy programming. (National Anthem...Static)

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

2011 Recap

So here we go.  Another in the long, tawdry list of 2011 year in review blogs.  Seeing how mine is 2011.011 (got an extra 4 days in there) I'm sure that will make it extra special to our readers.

2011 was a big year for food trucks in Boise.  A huge year, in fact.  By some miracle of timing and divine intervention we managed to actually time a wave of new businesses with the actual demand of said business.  There are the newbies such as Archie's Place, Stuck In Your Grill and B29 Streatery and then we have the rise of Brown Shuga and Riceworks to prominence from years of hard work.  As the months rolled on, our respective roles and themes seemed to crystallize as well.

My role, it seems, is to be somewhat outspoken.  This has come about for a few reasons:  natural inclination being top of the list.  I am tried and true back of the house.  It was determined a long time ago that it was better off for everyone if I did not talk to the guest.  Or the press.  Or anyone in general.  In addition to my natural state of persnickityness, I have the benefit of being a cog in a larger machine, which has been eating all my social media time of late.  Add in a dash of NYC attitude which I refuse to relinquish and you end up with that most dangerous of things, a cook with a computer.

2011 was a year of successes, trials and tribulations.  The hard thing about doing something new is that it is, well, new.  B29 Streatery took it to the streets in the best fashion we could manage.  We have done breakfast, lunches, dinners, late nights, farmer's markets, concessions, beer festivals, winter markets, caterings and food truck rallies.  In some cases, we've done all of the above in the same couple of days.  For a while, it seemed like you couldn't turn around without seeing the truck.  And then, all of a sudden, we were gone.  Poof.  Off the grid almost completely.

We managed to learn a few things during all those days and nights in the crush.  The biggest thing we learned is that while the denizens of Boise are ready for the food truck movement, the City of Boise is not quite there yet.  Now, I understand that Boise is a very spread out city.  The percentage of city available to do business in for a food truck vastly outnumbers the percentage of area that we cannot do business in.  But like every red-blooded American, I want what's on the other side of the fence.  I want access to what is supposed to be a vibrant, economically diverse and locally driven downtown area.  I want to bring to Boise what is in place in Portland and starting to appear in Seattle, San Diego, LA, Philadelphia, and the hits keep on rolling.  Instead, I get boundaries that protect a downtown core that is slowly shrinking and riddled with vacant real estate. 

Here's the deal: no one is handing out money for upper end restaurants.  Food trucks are a relatively inexpensive way for the up and coming chefs of the area to make a name for themselves in a low risk, moderate reward atmosphere.  If we, as a city, want to keep the chain restaurants out and keep Boise local, diverse and supportive of our food culture, the city needs to back up the only way that we, the young and disenfranchised culinary elite, have to progress our business prospects.  Look at Portland and Seattle, where the upper end food trucks have gained traction.  The next step for them?  A brick and mortar setting.  Skillet Cafe.  Marination Station.  You want local restaurants to take those 800-1000 square foot restaurant parcels downtown?  Give the food trucks a couple of years of full support and those parcels will be full.  Otherwise, the Quick Serve Chain Commandos are waiting in the wings.

The big question is, who am I to suggest this?  I'm just a dude who runs a truck.  I am also a veteran of the kitchens of Roy Yamaguchi, Wolfgang Puck, Starwood Hotels in Hawaii and New York City, a top 10 new restaurant in the US, James Beard Nominated Brick 29 Bistro and a Certified Executive Chef with the American Culinary Federation.  I am the type of person who for many reasons, cannot get funding for a restaurant.  So, I am a dude who runs a truck.  Jason Farber who owns and operates Archie's Place is a dude who runs a truck.  He is also one of the more familiar faces in the Boise food scene.  Mike Mohica of Ono's Cafe and Kanak Attack Catering is thinking of joining the truck business.  She's gonna shoot me because I can't spell, but Yvonne at Brown Shuga is no joke.  She's got chops.  We support local farms, local vendors and are an economically viable option to the traditional restaurant.  We've gone a long way to proving our worth, the next step comes from the City of Trees.  All we're looking for is a little bit of Aretha's favorite 7 letter word.

Now after all that, back to the "Poof."  Our plans for 2012 are considerably more conservative than 2011.  We will continue to be a fixture at the Boise Food Truck Rallies.  Catering will continue to be a focus and we are in the middle of a website remodel to reflect that.  Concessions, Festivals and similar events have been very good to us and we are going to be a presence at more of those events.  What this means for our faithful followers and fans, is that B29 Streatery is not going to be omnipresent in the forseeable future.  I apologize to the tips of my toes for not keeping up on the social media the last couple of months.  There isn't an excuse and I won't try to sell you one.  Just know that I am going to keep better tabs on things from now on. 

Once again, we will be at the Food Truck Rallies and will pick up more gigs as the year goes on.  All your favorites will be on board, and you can usually count on me for something out of left field on the special board.  Keep an eye posted on Facebook, Twitter and the good ol' B29 Streatery News.  We do have some surprises in the works but its no fun if I tell them now. 

2011 is down for the count, now just working on a better 2012.  On the bright side, I've got an open invitation to lead a barbarian horde when civilization crumbles.