Let’s start with some mobile food math. What happens when you take this:

Then add one of these:

The end result equals this, the breakaway favorite of the winter 2017 food truck season, Kenny’s Meat Wagon (2.0).

I have enjoyed watching this transformation of both businesses over the last four months. Mike from Flattop was a client of mine when I was at the Food Fort. I watched him transform from a guy helping out a friend with a hot dog cart, to taking a wild idea of trying to grill a pizza on the same flattop grill of said hot dog cart (I was there to orchestrate the first field trial) to slowly building a food truck to deliver said pizza to the masses. I was also at the Food Fort when Kenny started his cart. I helped him get his first site placements and became used to his extreme indifference to adversity. I watched Kenny slowly grow as well. This unique idea of using Flattop as the (almost literal) flatbed to boost us Kenny’s Meat Wagon was a novel idea. I was embedded in this enterprise for two reasons. First, my original plan to escape my Shawshank Redemption like existence as an employee of the state was to create a food truck rental program similar how this arrangement kind of works. When that idea and my ownership of O’Betty’s 2 in Athens failed swiftly and miserably I fell in to the Food Fort. Second, I was in communication with the team weekly as this whole enterprise evolved so I was very interested in seeing how it might work for a great number of reasons.

Kenny’s Meat Wagon has established a reputation on serving big, man sized sandwiches with lots of fresh ingredients and exceptional locally sourced breads. See a few examples below.

Kenny’s Meat Wagon started as a cart in 2013. Being a bit under the radar and a smaller profile cart he won notoriety at several food trucks events including best food cart in Columbus in 2014 at the Columbus Food Truck Festival, in 2015, best overall vendor at the Q FM 96 food truck festival, in 2016, 2nd place overall in the Columbus Food Truck Festival.

In the late fall of 2016 inspired by a spin of the Lend Lease Act between England and the USA during World War Two, Kenny’s Meat Wagon brokered access to the Flattop Pizza Truck (with the arcane knowledge of its owner Mike Cryan) thus Kenny’s Meat Wagon (2.0, Truck, Kenny’s Mikewagon) was born. This true Meat Wagon has been pounding the pavement pretty hard over the winter, something Kenny could not do in cart format. His timing was good since he was also expanding his family with a second child concurrently. The truck offers a more expanded menu than the cart could as well as the capacity to serve more people in a shorter period of time. I checked in with Kenny to find out more about his Meat Wagon.

1) What was the tipping point for you to start Kenny’s Meat Wagon?

I had been working an office job for 8 years and not going very far. I really didn’t like the office life and wanted to do something else but I felt stuck. I had always wanted to get into the restaurant industry but the thought of cooking someone else’s food and working crazy hours didn’t sound great to me. My wife had been pushing the food cart idea for a while. We saved up as much as we could, then, one day while staring out the window of the office I decided to go for it. My wife backed me 1000% of the time and we jumped in feet first. My last day in the office was a Thursday, we got married on Friday, took a little honeymoon and I was a full time food cart owner/operator when we got home

2) You operated as a cart for over three years, what are the pros and cons of operating from a cart vs. a truck. Is there anything you miss about being a cart operator?

I have to say that there’s not a whole lot that I miss about running a food cart! I had a ton of fun and got to work some really fun events and meet a countless number of amazing people. But, it is hard, physical work, hot in the summer and nearly impossible to operate in the winter. The food truck has given me the opportunity to run through the winter. It has also allowed me to expand the menu in ways that I never could with the cart. It has opened the door to use ingredients that I could never use on the cart. The thing that I do miss the most about the cart is not having the face to face contact with the regulars I’ve built up over time. I’ve met some really amazing, interesting people over the years and I’ve had some great conversations while cooking their food. I also think that people really like to be able to watch their food be prepared in front of them.

3) What type of culinary experiences did you have prior to starting the cart?

I had no professional cooking experience when I started the cart. I had never gone to culinary school. I am pretty much completely self-taught when it comes to cooking. I grew up helping my mom in the kitchen, reading recipes and helping as I could. I started to really learn watching Alton Brown on the Food Network. He really got me interested in the science of cooking, and how and why you use different techniques in the kitchen. I practised as much as I could. Anytime friends or family had parties, tailgates, etc. I would always jump on the opportunity to “cater” the event and try new things. Everyone I knew became guinea pigs in whatever experiment I was on at the time. They enjoyed that most of the time but trust me, not everything is a winner! Just learn and adapt and keep on moving!

4) When did you know that you loved to cook and wanted to do so for a living? Do you have strong food traditions in your family growing up?

I enjoyed food from a very early age. As I was getting out of high school and beyond is when I really stared to realize that cooking was my future. We didn’t really have strong food traditions growing up. My mom did make sure that we always had really good home-made food on the table every night. She had her core recipes that she stuck with (some that I still cook today), and she would experiment when she could. Being around and having good food so often is what really got me interested in cooking. Without my mom, I don’t think I would be the cook that I am today.

5) Most of your menu is sandwich based and often skews toward items like Italian Beef Sandwiches as well as what objective people such as my wife consider to be the best Italian sub in the state of Ohio. What inspired your choice of sandwiches? Do you have Italian family connections where you grew up? Did you discover Italian Beef while in Chicago?

I’ve spent my whole life making everything into sandwiches. Having pasta for dinner? Butter some bread and eat it like a sandwich! Breakfast? Pile it all between your toast and eat it like a sandwich! I discovered Italian Beef on my first trip out Chicago and I was hooked. The au jus soaked bread with tender, thin sliced beef with giardiniera and roasted peppers immediately became my favorite sandwich. I started trying to recreate it as soon as I got home. When starting the cart I needed something that no one else had and Italian Beef was it. The rest of the menu has come since then based on my favorite things to eat. I put a ton of thought into every item on the menu. Everything on the menu has been tested and tweaked countless times before you even see it as a customer. Quality is not something to take lightly. Our THE Italian Sandwich that you referenced has been an evolving sandwich for the last 3 years. We’ve finally gotten it to where I’m 100% happy with it. It is absolutely my favorite sandwich on the menu.

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Phone: (614) 425-0556