FOOD TRUCK
ENFIELD, Conn.—At 3:30 in the afternoon, with the sun shining high in a bright blue late summer sky and ducks gliding placidly across Freshwater Pond in the heart of Thompsonville, Brett Johnson gets to work in his 18-by-8½-foot portable office — his food truck.
Soundtracked by the steady hum of a generator, Johnson fills metal containers with shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheese before turning to the stove, where he heats up flatbreads with a coating of olive oil and roasted garlic.
Johnson, 56, of Ellington, has 30 minutes until the weekly Enfield Farmers Market opens up, and he, like the other vendors setting up their temporary shops on Main Street, hopes the nice weather portends some good foot traffic.
Johnson is the chef/owner of the Angry Skillet food truck, which offers up “the hottest eats in the Northeast,” according to its slogan.
Like Enfield’s foray into allowing food trucks in town, Johnson is new to the “mobile food-vending” industry. Though no stranger to cooking, Johnson had what he calls a “corporate job” before this, working as a chef manager for the CulinArt Group, which provides dining services to corporations, higher education institutions, private schools, and senior living communities, according to its website.
Most recently, Johnson oversaw eight employees at Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s Wallingford campus, where he and his staff provided breakfast and lunch options to employees Monday through Friday. Prior to that, Johnson spent 20 years providing similar service to the former Stanley Works based in New Britain.
While those positions enabled him to do some cooking, like preparing soups, entrees, and operating a deli station, Johnson said there was “too much paperwork” associated with managing.
“I’d rather chef more than manage,” he said.
Johnson grew up around restaurants, as his parents owned one when he was growing up. He started working in kitchens at age 12, and all told, he’s worked in more than 50 kitchens. Over the years, he “hoarded” kitchen equipment with the idea of starting his own food venture someday.
When the Monday-Friday routine became too “same-old” for him, he began to put his plan into action. He started looking at food trucks rather than brickand-mortar setups because food trucks require far less overhead costs, he said.
Johnson found his food truck, or rather, his food trailer, online. It was a taco truck owned by a Mexican restaurant in Portland, Maine. Johnson traded in his car for a Ford F-350 truck, and on New Year’s Eve this past year, drove to Maine with his wife, Sonia, to retrieve his new restaurant on wheels.