As restaurants were shuttered, employees went out on their own

Faced with a pandemic-related layoff from her restaurant management position, Patti Alden and her husband, Bryant, executive chef at a popular valley restaurant, decided to turn the downturn into opportunity — they opened a food truck business at a time when many of the region’s restaurateurs were reducing hours or contemplating closing their doors.

They scouted the want ads and backroads for a vehicle they could turn into a food truck. They found it in the form of a 16-foot, 1966 Shasta travel trailer. They plunked down $400 for the purchase, hauled the trailer home from Vermont, and spent the next three months transforming the hulk into a gleaming mobile kitchen.

Both of the Aldens have extensive culinary experience, and from 2004 to 2014 they enjoyed a 10-year career of owning and managing the Chef’s Market café in North Conway.

Bryant, who was inducted into the American Academy of Chefs in July, continues to serve as executive chef at the Wildcat Tavern in Jackson, where he has been for five years, following 15 years as a hotel chef. Patti has extensive experience in restaurant management and event planning.

So they had the chops to take a new path in the restaurant world, and they decided to do just that, literally hitting the road selling homemade crepes out of the renovated trailer.

They stripped the trailer down to its bones (encountering cosmetic and structural issues along the way) and soon created a solid and shiny metal eatery christened with the name, Tin Can Co.

They hit the road last Aug. 1. “It provided some stability for us,” said Bryant. “We definitely wanted something that was aesthetically pleasing. It just makes people kind of smile to look at it. Patti came up with this concept of the vintage trailer, giving it a rebirth, and she was spot-on.”

“It made us feel hopeful because we had some control of our future,” said Patti.

“We were physically building a camper and we were mentally and emotionally building a business, kind of on a shoestring budget, so it made us feel like survivors. It made us feel like no matter what happens as things are crumbling around us, we just felt like we’re just going to keep moving ahead in a positive direction.”

“We just wanted to go back to small business,” she added. “You realize in a pandemic that anything could change instantly, so we decided to rebuild ourselves. We thought a food truck was pretty pandemic-proof, along with being flexible and mobile, so we could go to the people instead of having the people come to us,” Patti said.

They have found various spots from which to base the trailer, and this winter thrived at Cranmore Mountain Resort in North Conway, where they set up shop on weekends and during school vacation weeks.

Also on-site this winter is the Cheese Louise food truck, another familiar option on the valley’s food truck scene.

Why food trucks at Cranmore, which also offers its own culinary venues?

“With Covid guidelines in place, we are asking our guests to use their car as their base lodge and limit time indoors. Adding the food trucks seemed to make sense as a great amenity for guests looking to stay outside,” said Cranmore General Manager Ben Wilcox. “We have set up a few tents with heaters, and people are utilizing the food trucks and then eating in tents or at outside picnic tables,” he said.

The offering also equates to a value-added option that has gone over well with guests at the resort.

“Food trucks, in general, are very popular,” said Wilcox.

“Offering quality trucks like Tin Can Co. and Cheese Louise has been a hit with our guests. People are looking for outside food options, so this has been a good fit for us.”

‘A family tradition’

A word on nomenclature: While Tin Can Co. and Cheese Louise operate out of trailers pulled by other vehicles (as is the case with many mobile kitchens), the term “food truck” is generally used to reference both engine-driven trucks and tow-behind trailers.

Lots of operators specialize as a way of keeping a handle on costs and minimizing inventory — a concern both for the bottom line as well as the practical business of making the best use of space inside the kitchen and reducing the weight of goods carried.

For Tin Can Co., a family Christmas tradition of breakfast crepes dictated the menu, with both sweet and savory offerings finding their way into the fillings.

“It was kind of like a family tradition, and I just wanted to do something different for food. I didn’t want to do typical food that another food truck was doing; I wanted to do something unique,” Patti said.

The primary focus remains crepes, but since the Cranmore opportunity came along, they added hot soups and other hot foods that appeal to skiers. They also added a small convection oven to allow them to expand into other areas.

“We’re trying to not complicate our menu too much. I’d prefer to do fewer items better than to have a real extensive menu,” said Patti.

In addition to the Cranmore gig, other locations have been farmers markets and local farms where they highlight the farms’ specialties. For instance, they might incorporate a strawberry farm’s fruit or another farm’s heirloom tomatoes into their crepes.

“Our background is catering and events,” said Patti, “so we are most interested in doing weddings, private events, fairs, festivals, farmers markets — that type of thing. But because of Covid, there aren’t many events, and we wanted to get out on the road, so we had a lot of people reach out to us and ask us if we wanted to park at their location, because a food truck draws business into a spot.”

Food truck culture

Cheese Louise was founded in North Conway by Bryce Harrison, James Gaudreault and Ian Lubkin in June 2018. Since then, they added a second food truck that operates in the Portland, Maine, area. They also have a stationary location, known as The Commissary, near the Conway end of the Kancamagus Highway.

They’re all about artful, creative grilled cheese sandwiches. Serving slopeside at Cranmore this winter, the crew focused on keeping skiers, snowboarders and snow tubers fed and happy.

“We started Cheese Louise after our second year of college in order to have a fun and exciting summer job and with the goal of bringing food truck culture to the Mt. Washington Valley where we grew up,” said Harrison.

“We choose to serve grilled cheese because nobody was doing just grilled cheeses, and we knew that if we kept our concept simple and focused on just one thing, we could deliver the best grilled cheese sandwiches people have ever had,” Harrison said. “We also saw the grilled cheese sandwich as an opportunity to be creative and use unique, local ingredients to elevate our sandwiches far above the expectation of what a grilled cheese sandwich could be.”

Harrison said he and his business partners were inspired by the movie, “Chef,” which focuses on an executive chef who buys a food truck, travels and builds a great following. He said they also “have come to be inspired by the ideas of business leaders such as Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, who has inspired us to grow our company in a way that prioritizes the well-being of our employees, our community and the environment just as much as we prioritize growth and profits.”

He added: “We now see Cheese Louise as an opportunity not just to create a fun and fulfilling job for ourselves, but to do the same for all of our team members.” Cheese Louise employs 25 people during its traditional May-to-October operating season.

According to Harrison, “Cheese Louise, up to this point, has been an entirely student-run company. At first, this was because we were recruiting our friends and young siblings, but as we have continued to grow, we have promoted these students to leadership positions and have been amazed by how they have risen to the occasion. These high school and college students have, for us, redefined what young people are capable of when given the autonomy and support to learn and lead.”

Another popular Mt. Washington Valley food truck is Kimberly’s Gluten Free Kitchen, helmed by Kimberly Harvey and focused on gluten-free offerings, in particular, tacos and tater tots. But her food truck business was sidelined in 2020 due to Covid-19 concerns, and Harvey is looking forward to reopening this May.

“Our focus in the past was on large venues/events that attracted thousands of participants. This phenomenon isn’t going to happen successfully for a while, so we are looking at smarter venues that can support us this season,” she noted.

She said the pandemic has led food truck operators to focus on opportunities to partner with venues that do not charge attendance fees, seek ways to cut food costs and stay closer to home to pare travel expenses.

Even when Harvey’s truck is closed, the J-Town Deli & Country Store in Jackson sells her gluten-free specialties (such as gluten-free, sour-cream-and-onion biscuits) yearround.

The Purple Straw food truck, based in Madison, offers soups, stews, hot sandwiches, lobster rolls, and lobster macaroni and cheese. It specializes in smoothies and offers a variety of fruits, as well as a cucumber-and-pear smoothie and a banana nut bread smoothie.

A bit further south, in Effingham, is Dueling Chefs Smoke ’n’ Grille, an engine-driven food truck featuring such specialties as pulled pork, Texas-style brisket and artisanal sausages. All this and poutine, too. They’ll even cater your pig roast.

‘We thought a food truck was pretty pandemic-proof...

We could go to the people instead of having the people come to us.’