Article
The wheels fall off The Lime Truck
The Lime Truck's creator discusses why he's opening brick-and-mortar units.
October 7, 2013 by Cherryh Cansler — Editor, FastCasual.com
When it comes to food trucks, many restaurants roll them out as a supplement to their brick-and-mortar businesses, but Chef Daniel Shemtob, 25, took another route.
Three years ago, he created The Lime Truck, known for its infusion of limes into almost every dish and also its eclectic menu of New American cuisine. The concept has earned him his share of buzz, winning the Food Network's "Great Food Truck Race" in 2011. Shemtob also was victorious on national television shows, including NBC's "Food Fighters" and the Cooking Channel's "Eat Street."
The chef wasn't happy resting on his laurels, however, and opened his first brick-and-mortar location last year in L.A.'s Westwood, and opened a second location three weeks ago in downtown L.A. FastCasual.com chatted with Shemtob about his plans for the growing brand.
Q: Your food truck is so successful; why did you decide to go brick and mortar?
Shemtob: It's the natural progression of growing your brand, or in this case the TLT Food brand. I love my food trucks and always will, but the difficulties of growing and scaling a food truck without losing any quality in our food and service, is quite challenging. In the restaurant/fast casual industry, it has been a much more seamless process, and we are able to expand and focus more on our menu and what we can offer our customers.
Q: Why did you choose Downtown L.A. as the second location?
Shemtob: I love Downtown L.A. It's truly becoming a hot spot for real estate, business, restaurants and living. It has amazing people, architecture; everything is in walking distance and the businesses downtown really support one another. It's like a family.
I also live a couple blocks away from the downtown TLT Food, so with it being that close, I can stop in anytime, to either help out or just check in, and say, 'Hey!'
Q: What's your growth plan? Franchising or corporate owned?
Shemtob: I'm not sure at the moment, but I've never really liked the idea of franchising the restaurant. Of course things can always change, but keeping it corporate seems like the right plan for now as we build our brand.
Q: What makes your food different than the competition?
Shemtob: I think our menu is a lot different from our competition for a few reasons. One reason is that I was never trained to prepare only one type of cuisine, so when we started with the food truck and its menu, we created a new menu consisting of seven very different dishes a day, which is how our menu came to be known as New American, [which] incorporates all types of cuisine.
A second reason is that every item on our restaurant menu was created and thought through on the truck, so we literally are bringing street food to the fast casual industry, in our own way, offering our loyal fans and new customers the ultimate TLT Food experience.
Lastly, our menu differs from others because everything is priced at $10 or under. Our price range is based on the amount of prep, ingredients and thought process that goes into the each dish. For instance, a lot of the protein dishes take up to 48 hours of prep, and granted it only takes a couple of hours to actively prep, it still takes time and precision to bring it to a level we are confident in delivering to our customers.
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