How did food trucks get so popular? Well, sometimes it's been pointed out that food trucks have their roots in the old chuck wagons that served the cattlemen.
That's why it's very appropriate for me to post this article about Brady's Chuckwagon Catering that ran in the Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine back on July 30, 1972.
It's an interesting article that once again shows how John L. Brady of Brady's Restaurant fame was way ahead of his time with his fleet of mobile food trucks. (I have a lot of great, new material about Brady's Restaurant and John Brady's other business endeavors that will be showing up here on the blog soon.)
The Plain Dealer article is kind of long, so I'm serving it up in two digestible portions.
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Photostory by Tom Kaib
Midge Gore |
“It was just a fact of life in Lorain County,” says John L.
Brady, “that a boy wouldn’t be caught dead car-hopping. He just wouldn’t and
couldn’t make it. He would be laughed out of the county. And this is pretty
similar, so I hired girls.”
“This” is Brady’s Chuckwagon Catering, Inc., a 20-route (and
expanding) operation he started four years ago with one truck after growing up
in his parents’ restaurant business. The girl driver idea is working so well
it’s driving competing caterers to such ploys as offering gigantic doughnuts at
giveaway prices. But it’s hard to compete with someone like Mildred (Midge)
Gore of Vermilion when she jumps out of her little red truck at a stone crusher
in the Flats or a construction site at 12th and Superior. She’s a tiny little
thing with sky blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair (see cover), a
molasses-dipped voice with a Logan County, West Virginia, lilt. She’s filled
out like an 18-year-old beauty queen and she can’t not smile.
When Midge hits the changer on her belt and turns her sky
blues up into a hardhat with a really sincere “thanks hon, have a nice day,” he
looks like he’s been soaking in a vat of Jurgens [sic] lotion for two months. The big
cheap doughnut guys don’t stand a chance. One Mohawk high iron worker wants
Midge carrying his banner. He put a “Think Indian” sticker on her truck bumper.
But no go. She’s got a husband who runs a service station
and races cars and three children, which is why she doesn’t mind getting up at
3 in the morning to drive from Vermilion to Lorain, order her stores, load her
truck and be in Cleveland by 5 a. m. That way she can be home by 2 or 3 in the
afternoon and be with the kids. And a hard-working smiler like Midge can turn
$200 to $250 a week on her salary-with-commission, John Brady says. But the
average for 19 girls and one guy is $150 to $200. The one guy is Harry Bell of
Grafton, a long-time veteran catering driver who can hold his own with the
female competition.
“At 140 degrees, everything stays moist,” Marge Gencur says.
It’s very similar to airline food operations."
Marge sets up the routes, teaches drivers the geography and
trouble shoots. She’s the one who scouts around for the four or five services
stations in each city that will make a road call to fix a flat or get a stalled
truck going. The drivers just carry the phone numbers, they don’t have to worry
about repairs.
Next: Brady's unique solution for preparing and delivering hot, fresh coffee
2 comments:
I had to chuckle at two (in particular) of the P-D writer's observations concerning the female food truck operator, Midge Gore. ". . . She's a tiny little thing . . ." or "She's filled out like an 18 year old beauty queen . . ." WHAT?!? Maybe it's mainly because I'm a woman, but I find writing like Mr. Kaib's to be sexist, old-school and condescending of females in general. But then again, he wrote in another era.
Hi Lisa! You’re right of course, and I was worried that someone might take offense at the article. But I decided that the interesting behind-the-scenes look at Mr. Brady’s operations was worth posting. And the whole thing is kind of innocent if you think about it, especially in view of what’s been going on in the last 40+ years.
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