Room One staffers pick up lunch to go from Nancy Pfeiffer at Fork.
By Laurelle Walsh
Mobile food trucks don’t just serve tacos and they aren’t just for special events anymore.
Food trucks — essentially restaurants on wheels — are a big deal in West Coast metropolitan areas from Vancouver to San Diego. Websites like seattlefoodtruck.com — with its own handy mobile app — will help you find food trucks in the Seattle area by business name, neighborhood or type of cuisine.
Last weekend there was even a food truck festival — “Mobile Food Fight For Hunger” — in Shoreline, Washington, where a dozen trucks served up everything from Japanese-style hot dogs, to donuts, to gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches.
And now — wait for it — li’l ol’ Twisp has joined in with its very first mobile food business called Fork, which serves Asian noodle bowls, Vietnamese bahn mi sandwiches, hamburgers, hand-cut French fries and Greek salads five days a week from the parking lot at TwispWorks.
Fork even sells soft-serve ice cream, a menu item co-owner Nancy Pfeiffer says she’s been wanting to offer for 20 years. “We want to offer something for everyone,” Pfeiffer said, “and personal touches feel important.”
Everything on the Fork menu is made from scratch, Pfeiffer said, and touches such as the fresh-baked roll and home-pickled veggies on the banh mi sandwich raise a quick lunch to a higher level.
Food is available for takeout or may be eaten at tables under the giant shade trees next to the truck. Pfeiffer and business partner Steve Morse plan to be open through October, and say they would like to set up portable heat lamps near the seating area on the lawn to extend the outdoor eating season.
“We’ve been in the restaurant business our whole lives,” Morse said. The couple owned a bakery in West Yellowstone, Montana, from the late 1980s through the ‘90s, and then moved to Bend, Oregon, where they opened another bakery — Nancy P’s Baking Company — which they sold in 2011.
“Then we moved to the Methow Valley and tried to figure out what to do” Pfeiffer said. They bought the truck — formerly a linen service van — a year ago, and Morse has spent much of the last year converting the interior into a certified kitchen. Fork opened at the beginning of August.
Like the location
They are grateful for the truck’s safe parking space at TwispWorks each night, especially since their home on Frost Road was nearly lost two weeks ago, when the Twisp River Fire burned right up to the yard. “The firefighters saved our house, what can we say?” Pfeiffer said.
Morse and Pfeiffer appear in dramatic video footage shot by Seattle’s KOMO news on Aug. 19 as they watched the fire on the hill above their house. And Morse’s terse comments about the experience were quoted in an AP story that was carried by news agencies across the country. “They tried to get me to say more, but they chose the wrong guy,” he said.
They stayed with friends that night, and opened Fork on schedule the next day. “It was pretty quiet, but some locals came for lunch,” Pfeiffer said. “We wanted to be open for the locals and the firefighters.”
Pfeiffer and Morse are happy with Fork’s location just off Glover Street and near the Interpretive Center’s native plant garden. “We considered quite a few other locations in the valley and decided this is the best place for us,” Pfeiffer said. They will store the truck at TwispWorks over the winter and plan to re-open sometime in March.
“Food trucks are a great idea for Twisp. I think the valley needs a couple more mobile food businesses,” Morse said.
Fork is open Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., and is also at the Methow Valley Farmers Market on Saturdays from 9 a.m. – noon until the end of the market season. Call (509) 449-2089 for more information.
