Small Town Wonder: Backroad Bistro

Did y’all read the article in Bon Appetit where this NYC hipster journalist went to Indianapolis to find out how much like Brooklyn it was? And how he was surprised by how cool and edgy and “authentic” the food culture had become?

That hurt me.

I can’t even count the number of times a big fancy food magazine or a chef in an enormous northern or west coast city get credit for “starting” food revolutions that small town, small city, or rural folk have known about all along or just consider it the way they like to cook. A couple of the folks whom the writer interviewed gave him an earful and called out his pomposity.

Take the food truck for example. Sure, LA, Portland or Austin maybe gets credit for making them a big, cool, part of urban American culture, and a place for higher-end, gourmet menus but I’m pretty sure people from Mississippi to Montana have been eating corn dogs and funnel cakes out of food trucks their whole lives at every small town festival they’ve ever been to. And my town had a down home fried catfish truck way back in 2002…well before it was en vogue.

Well, we just got back from Portland (AMAZING, y’all. the weather. the scenery, the locally grown and made food…) and of course, we hit up their food cart pods – tiny tracks of land where a handful to a couple dozen food trucks set up shop together. The variety of “truck food” was amazing, but I have to say the quality wasn’t ANY higher than what we can get right here. No joke.

That’s not to say that our town has fully embraced the food truck as regular eating spot thing yet. But our friends at Laurel’s own Gourmet Truck, BackRoad Bistro, are working to change that.

When Juice and Candice started up, they had to pay all kinds of silly city fees to park here or serve food there…because no one knew how to categorize them. Were they a restaurant? A one-truck Festival? A Delivery service? Geez, Bureaucracy. But finally, after making their case and clearing all the hurdles and hiccups, they’re off and running and making — I say this with absolutely no hyperbole — the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten.

For real. It stands up to every delicious thing I’ve EVER eaten from any food truck… from a Portland version of Chinese Bing Mi to an Austin Fried Avocado Taco.

I don’t say this lightly… the Slowride, BackRoad’s Carnitas sandwich with just the right amount of spicy BBQ sauce and yellow mustard, plus pickles and crunchy, crispy bacon, knocks my socks off.

But enough about the Slowride. 😉 You don’t have to take my word for it… hop down to the corner of 12th on a lunch hour weekday OR Slowboat Brewing Company on a Saturday evening and try one for yourself.

Chances are you’ll get to visit with the folks who brought the gourmet food truck “revolution” to Laurel, Mississippi… and who’ve paved the way for our upscale burger truck, popsicle cart, and ice cream truck to join them.

Juice is full of life – a creative soul who also happens to be a classically trained chef with experience in kitchens from Colorado to the Alabama Gulf Coast. Candice is a warm front-of-the-house and business-smarts guru who loves people as much as life.

They met while working at a local Laurel restaurant, and started dreaming together of working for themselves, cooking their own food, and having a kitchen that wasn’t bound to one specific spot. Candice was hesitant, but Juice’s exuberance and vision won her over.  That’s how the Bistro was born.

As I was talking with Juice and Candice about their vision for BRB, and they explained their passion for making truly great food, finding freedom and joy in their work, and connecting with down-to-earth folks with just a little crazy in their bones, something dawned on me. Juice and Candice’s life stories and histories had basically led them to this very point. They both seemed to have food, hospitality, and our little hometown way down deep in their veins.

I’ve known Juice a long time (long, long, long) as his daddy and my daddy were old friends who used to go out to the county and smoke at least fifty turkeys together every holiday season. Ricky, Juice’s dad, was a huge, warm, funny business man who loved people and took care of everyone around him… that’s how I remember him.

When I asked Juice if his dad’s love of cooking and extroverted nature had any impact on his own decision to enter the restaurant business, he said, “You know, I helped with those turkeys he used to smoke every year. I’d stay up with him all night, and I remember how glad people were to get those things when we’d deliver them. It was one of my earliest cooking memories.”

Candice told me how her family’s ties to Laurel kept bringing her back, and even though she’d lived and worked all around the country, she realized that the community here had supported her and felt homey every time she visited.

It’s been a match… and they, with their trailblazing, freewheelin’, adventurous outlook –and food– have brought Laurel something that not even all big cities can claim– a food truck with a truly delicious gourmet sandwich.

Eat your heart out, Portland.