Paul Kukich, owner of the popular BurgerRito food truck, announced his participation in a new brick-and-mortar venture last week.
Working with Les Baxter, a co-owner at the east-side Hog Pit Smokehouse, Kukich plans to launch a restaurant dubbed Les-Paul Lounge by mid-January in the lobby of the 4400 Broadway Building at 4400 E. Broadway.
At 3,200 square feet, the space, which once belonged to the Java Café, will feature live music five nights a week and menu items from the Hog Pit and from BurgerRito, including the burger-burrito hybrid for which the truck is named.
“I have one of the largest and most diverse menus as far as local food trucks are concerned and The Hog Pit menu is massive,” Kukich said. “This is a merging of all we have to offer.”
While the idea of low overhead is why many cooks get into food trucks in the first place, Kukich represents a growing number of Tucson food truck owners that have made the leap into stationary spots in recent years.
Mobile eateries like the horror-themed sandwich trailer Serial Grillers have done well with the transition. The Grillers expanded into pizza and opened up a strip mall spot at 5737 E. Speedway in late 2013 that they’ve since expanded.
Others, like the Fatdogs food cart, home of the 18-inch Ultimate Fatdog, only made it a year at the Tucson Mall food court before vacating the property after a menu dispute with mall management.
A post on the Fatdogs Facebook page in October said that Fatdogs will return in some capacity in 2015.
2014 saw the opening of Jason’s Mexican Food at 2400 N. Pantano Road, a spinoff of the Taqueria Jason food truck that sets up daily west of the South Wilmot Road/East 22nd Street intersection. A second location has since sprung up at 4230 N. Oracle Road.
In September, owners of the Cheesy Rider food truck, Sean Scott and Robert Bruce, opened their second locale in the food court at the Foothills Mall, 7401 N. La Cholla Blvd.
Scott said the stable location has allowed them to experiment with their offerings.
Since the Foothills launch, they’ve added salads, new sandwiches and breakfast options for morning mall walkers and early rising employees.
“There was so much more we wanted to do and your menu can only be so big on a truck,” he said. “At the mall, you can try new things, different recipes. If it doesn’t work, you can just take it down.”
Scott and Bruce have not given up completely on their food truck. The duo mothballed the vehicle during the slow Christmas season and will have it back up and running by February.
Scott said both locations have been good to them.
“The truck has a cult following,” Scott said. “A very different clientele. With the mall location, we are expanding the popularity.”
Kukich is ecstatic at the opportunity of opening of a new restaurant in midtown, but he isn’t giving up on his food truck either.
He hopes to balance the two by hiring on extra help to run his mobile eatery at smaller events, while he takes the helm at bigger to-do’s such as Second Saturdays Downtown.
“The truck is what put my food on the map,” he added. “My goal is to keep it running.”
