Wine, Over Sharing, & All That Jazz

After setting up at Culture for over a year, Friday nights were now filled with rotating breweries.  That is until one week Kate found a winery up north off of the 15 for us to pop up at.  

Bernardo Winery held an Art Walk on the first Friday of the month from 5-9pm.  We loaded up the Ford Escape one toasty June afternoon, battled through some rush hour traffic & began positioning the grill & side panels of our tent to best block the wind.

This was always the most tedious part of our tent setup.  That & sometimes figuring out where to unload & then park the car.  The host would usually give you a general area to post up, but then Kate & I had to figure out how to optimize our front table (customer window) along with the back of house kitchen (cold table & grill) all within our 100 square foot tent.

A lot of those new places just assumed we were a food truck, so when we arrived they were a bit surprised.  Especially at Bernardo Winery where we were one of three food vendors, but the only one not on wheels.  

That night we were next to a taco truck & a BBQ food truck.  I can't remember the name of the BBQ outfit but the guy was a hawker.  

"Get your tri-tip, brisket, pulled pork, & BBQ ribs, here!" he shouted about every two minutes.  The people mingling amongst a live jazz quartet with their cabernets probably didn't notice it as much as we did, right next to the truck.

"What do guys sell?" he asked.

"Grilled cheese," I told him.

"That sounds good.  I'm down to do a trade later, if you guys are interested."

"Sure, I like BBQ," I said reluctantly.

"Oh yeah, we got the best.  I just did a huge catering order in Escondido earlier," he said.  "I just hand them the keys & they pay me the cash- that's it."

We both nodded.  Sure, catering.  It sounded too good to be true.  Or maybe his BBQ really was the best, even though I'd never heard of them until that night.  

I didn't have much time to ponder it, because we got bombarded by some nicely dressed seniors who wanted to get their hands on the Totes MaGoats.  The wine was finally kicking in & it went on like that for a while.  We went through almost six loaves of Sourdough before things slowed down & I backed our Escape up to the tent.

"You guys like brisket & ribs?" he asked & sized up our black markerboard menu.  

"Oh yeah.  And what would you like?" I asked.

"I'm kind of plain I just do a regular grilled cheese," he said, but I saw his eyes lock onto the tray of bacon on the back table.  "And throw some bacon on there if you don't mind."

He came back a couple of minutes later with two styrofoam containers full of BBQ, mac n' cheese & coleslaw.  We thanked him, gave him a two Bacon Streets on paper plates covered with foil & were on our way. 

We set up at that winery a few more times during the summer, but we never saw him or his truck again.  His BBQ was pretty average in my opinion.  Maybe that had something to do with it, or maybe it was the loud hawking.