Winter Pop Up
This past weekend I got to be part of a collaboration with Brew Gentlemen with our food truck Blue Sparrow. We were hoping to have the bus ready for this event but we were just about a week off. This event consisted of using our kitchen/restaurant space in Avalon with Brew Gentlemen bringing the beers, and us cooking new foods.
This was such a fun time to spend with friends who are doing awesome things. Brew Gentlemen has been one of my favorite breweries in Pittsburgh. I have the unique pleasure of working on the food truck at this brewery every week and it was so nice to have them come to our kitchen for a change.
We have been wanting to collaborate with them for a special event for some time now and this was a perfect way to kick it off. The Brew Gents brought up 4 of their beers to serve on tap (General Braddock’s IPA, Kaizen, Deep Breakfast, and Mammoth) to serve to all the customers on the north side of the city for a change. It was great to see a lot of familiar faces coming out to the pop up event, and it was even cooler to see new faces of people who heard about the even through the grapevine. Many people who stopped by lived blocks away from our kitchen and that was very exciting to see them eating and drinking at the space.
This event gave us a great opportunity to serve food that we typically done serve on our food truck. Out kitchen has a wood fired fired oven and other amenities that we don’t have on the truck or bus, so we were able to expand the menu and serve 3 new dishes.
Miso Ramen (miso broth, crispy pork or tofu, dippy egg, red cabbage, scallion s, bok choy, and nori)
Steel City Okonomiyaki (Capicola, green cabbage, kewpie mayo, hoisin BBQ, bonito flakes)
Kimchi Pizza (Mozzarella, kimchi, scallions, korean BBQ sause)
Chorizo Pizza (Mozzarella, parma dried chorizo, oregano, house banana peppers)
Getting to use the wood fired oven for these pizzas was a great experience. I have always been a fan of pizza, ask anyone in my family. I have used this oven twice before but that was on very limited knowledge and no experience except many youtube videos. Thankfully I had the master of wood fired pizza Ben from Campfired Pizza helping me figure out this oven. It was neat to get to work with someone who likes pizza even more than I do. He helped me figure out how big of a fire our oven needs, when the floor is ready, how to rotate the pizzas, and making sure each pizza gets the perfect crust. His food truck is away for the winter but make sure you find him next season, you will not be disappointed.
Getting to see the space set up and filled with people was a really cool experience for us at the Blue Sparrow. We have done a few private events there with a handful of friends and or family members. But this was the first time we operated with customer, and it was a great feeling for what we have planned in the future.
So many people came out to support us and Brew Gentlemen, and so many friends came out to help us with this task. Below is a picture of everyone who helped in the kitchen, on the register, serving beer, and cleaning up. A lot more goes in to a a kitchen than running a food truck, it was nice not being out in the cold while serving food though. This even couldn’t have happened with out the help from Ben, Devon, Curt, Justin, Nick, Alina, Alaina, or Matt.
This is a group of people brought together through work, food, and beer, who all enjoy each to the fullest. Seeing the excitement and feeling the energy of all of these people working together was really encouraging. These are people that I am so happy to call co workers, but to also call my friends. It was a a wonderful experience and I want to thank everyone who came out to support this first, hopefully of many, event was will be putting on!
This was a fun event and we are looking forward to doing more of the same in the future. Thank you so much to Alina for taking most of these photos. Please make sure you check out my friends over at Brew Gentlemen some time for some amazing drinks and a fantastic atmosphere, plus if you come on a Thursday I will be there with Blue Sparrow!