Jennifer Biron wants to shift gears and take her restaurant to the streets.
Biron and her fiancé and co-owner, Derek Cyrenne, started up their catering business called Redhead and the Chef in November last year. The couple operate out of their home on Cumming Street and offer lunch and dinner specials in addition to their catering services.
But staying in one spot was never the plan for the Redhead and the Chef.
Biron says they opened their business with the idea of eventually having a food truck.
“Currently Thunder Bay doesn’t have a food truck but there’s a lot of interest in making that happened,” she says.
“It’s really about those collaborative efforts and working with other people and businesses and demonstrating that we can bring a lot of value. We can infuse new people into your neighbourhood and we can stimulate the economy.”
Biron and Cyrenne met five years ago when they were both working at the same hotel. With Biron’s management experience and Cyrenne’s over two decades of culinary skills, the two decided to lay down their own path and start their own business.
They wanted to capitalize on the recent interest in food trucks. Having a mobile food truck allows restaurants to reduce their overhead costs.
But the price for a custom-made truck could go as high as $170,000.
Biron says they didn’t want to pay thousands of dollars to get a truck that didn’t meet their needs and are looking in the price range of $60,000 to $80,000.
She says her businesses didn’t qualify to receive funding from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation so that meant they would need to look elsewhere in order to pay for the truck.
Biron spent nine months creating a business plan and researching the various bylaws to see if having a local food truck was even possible.
“We sat down with some of the city officials and discussed what our plans are,” she says. “We’ve looked at the bylaws and the planning department basically says that if anyone is interested in opening a truck they’re more than welcome to.”
Biron says the city needs a reason before changing any bylaws so she has researched how to get around any regulations that might restrict her from operating a mobile eatery.
For example, she could park her truck at any privately owned business as long as she has permission to do so.
The truck can also park on city streets as long as the vehicle follows the size requirements outlined in the bylaw. Unlike restaurants that have to bring in a certain amount of customers, a food truck holds a limited amount of food and can go where the people are.
“It’s not that hard to come up with where you need to go,” she says. “You start to think about places like the construction site. I can get 50 guys over there to eat lunch then I can hop over to a hockey game and I can sell a few things over there and then head out to the ice races.”
She says that the city is thinking of creating food truck alleys if the idea gains enough momentum.
“It’s almost like a pop up gourmet food court,” she says.
The city’s cold and long winters don’t scare Biron either who says that they plan to have their truck out in the snow. Although if the temperature gets too cold, she says they will shut down but the catering side of their business will continue to run.
With television shows like Eat St. that features food trucks across North America, Biron says that the city is right on the verge of getting involved with a new trend.
“McDonalds will always be successful, your chain stores will always be successful, your favourite restaurant will always be your favourite restaurant but there is a market that does exist where people will travel and they will want something different,” she added.
