By Josh Seech. Photography by Andrew Roles.
Food carts are here to stay. Portland has transformed over the course of the last few years, and chefs are no longer found in the back of stuffy restaurants. They are now doing things their way, inside of carts, trucks and kiosks. Now located all around my favorite city, you can enjoy pretty much every kind of food on the go…
No waiting for a table. No dealing with a waitress with an attitude. You get to walk up and get some of the best foods around, served by the Northwest’s finest and most creative.
This is not just happening here either; this is becoming a national craze. San Francisco just held their 3rd annual Street Food Festival, where Portland’s own Big-Ass Sandwiches traveled down from their home located on SW 3rd and Ash to represent the Northwest in a pack of street food vendors from all over the country.
Big Ass Sandwiches is not just a cute name. Their sandwiches are huge, both with flavor and in size. When I was first introduced to them, their late-night crew member, Michelle recommended I get the “Big ass Sandwich, with roast beef” and advised I add bacon. Of course I complied, and what happened next change my life… as I was met with quite literally, the best damn sandwich I have ever had. The more I ate, the better it was, as the flavors were lying inside of their ciabatta bread home… melding, waiting to surprise me when I took another bite. I got the chance to talk with Lisa Wood, who runs B.A.S. with her husband Brian, and discuss Cart-Culture and some tasty sandwich recipes.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. What made you guys go for the Cart life, opposed to opening a restaurant?
It was actually a financial decision; we wanted to open a restaurant. I was in the Radio industry and went through 2 lay-offs due to corporate mergers in 2 years. I just became tired of the corporate B.S. and the radio structure. We knew we wanted to open a restaurant, but when it came to loans and banks; we had to go back to the drawing board. We were into street food, so we were like “why not?” Brian was not into it at first, due to not being able to build a kitchen, but it was the only way to start, we eventually want to do brick and mortar shop.
What are the advantages of having a cart opposed to having a restaurant? Any disadvantages?
They both are really different, in a cart you have clear lower overhead, and it’s less expensive. The disadvantages are that you have to have a smaller menu, like being a mini restaurant on wheels. Also, we don’t get to have running water, so no bath room, no heat and no AC. With laws and ordinances, we also get very limited storage and seating for people. Today for instance, it was over 100 degrees in the cart so we had to close early.
I think that you guys definitely have to be creative… be scrappy about it.
Yeah! You can go into a restaurant, and they can have ok food, but you can be sold on their ambience or the jukebox or whatever. In the cart world, you have to have good food and then the other stuff.
Why do you guys think that street food took off the way that it has?
I think you have different categories. It’s talented chefs and cooks wanting to make good food, but instead of opening a restaurant, we went with the cart because of the price. We’re lucky, they all know what they’re doing, and they’re making good food – so having people support us has been amazing. The other side is, this has become a whole new craze… its becoming ”cool”. There are blogs, reality shows and almost a touristy vibe about it now. So now fad chasers seen that this is cool, so they go and open a cart to stay with the fad.
You guys recently represented the NW when you went to SF, how was it down there and how was the reaction?
It was unreal! It was the hardest work we have ever done – 40 to 50 hours in 3 days, serving over 1500 sandwiches. It was incredible. Everyone loved the food, loved that they were fries in the sandwich. People really loved the name. We got to meet a bunch of cool people doing the same thing we’re doing; making great food with love.
It was definitely cool to be able to keep up to date with you guys via twitter and hear about how Californians where loving what the NW was bringing to the table.
I would have thought it would be annoying! So many people asked for live updates before we even left, and were constantly writing and showing support. It was cool how people enjoyed it, I am glad they did.
I think that is the best part of social networking, especially for artists and businesses; being able to connect with your audience and allow them to be a part of the experience.
Haha, yeah I follow Scott Ian (of the band Anthrax) and it is definitely cool to be able to see what he is doing. It’s a very unexpected technology, but one that I love.
You guys allow for customers to submit ideas for custom sandwiches, what are some of the craziest ones?
We take special ideas and play around with them. Man, this came up before we opened, and is still our most popular request: Homemade mac and cheese. We have done it a couple of times, took deep fried, homemade mac and cheese, with our French fries.
Uh, I really, really want that…
It’s amazing! We have done a jalapeño poppers sandwich; hand stuffed and wrapped in bacon. A spaghetti sandwich – we lost a bet on a Portland Timbers game and had to make a Seattle sandwich, so we did a sandwich with fresh salmon. We have been thinking of doing a “Fine dining” sandwich, make it about $15 and made by pre-order only. Another popular one is our meatball sandwich called “Brian’s big ass meaty balls”.
That’s so awesome! So what are the plans for the future?
We would love to open to a brick and mortar sandwich shop, serve beer and wine… maybe have a pinball machine. Be able to serve more of our popular sandwiches, and food – our clam chowder is super popular. We still want to open an Irish pub but that is some time down the “in 20 years” plans.
On twitter, you announced that it will be your 2 year anniversary on Dec 10th. You also mentioned it will be special, what can we expect?
I can’t say very much. Haha, but it will be awesome and we will keep you guys posted!
Follow Big-ass sandwiches on Twitter @bigasssandwich, or visit their website http://www.bigasssandwiches.com for full menu, hours and stuff. Thank you again to Lisa for chatting with us and if you ever, and I do mean ever… want to get a B.A.S. with me, hit me up, I’ll pitch on gas.
Still craving that mac and cheese one,
Josh “hungry-man” Seech
Follow me @xmoshuax