Interview with Pete McGough-Pose of the Everything Apple Food Truck, Which Can Run on Electricity

One of my pet peeves is a loud food truck. I love public space, sidewalks, parks, eating on benches, and street life, so I also love food trucks. That's why it's so frustrating when you are near one with a loud generator, where the guttural cranking sound of a diesel motor drowns out everything within a 50' radius and turns the food truck-proximate sidewalks, parks, or patios into a setting that resembles a metal stamping factory. 

Years ago, visiting Portland, Oregon, I was struck by the food truck plazas that seemed to have grown like moss in every parking lot. They were quiet havens, places where you could whisper and enjoy the sounds of birds, small pop-up plazas where the food trucks seemed at home. It was wonderfully organic and made for great public space.

[Pete McGough-Pose.]

And yet, even now in Minnesota, it's rare to see a food truck using electricity. That's why when I saw one the other day at Saint Paul's Bang Brewing, I had to stop and chat with the purveyor. The truck was called Everything Apple, and here's their story.

Pete: My. Name is Pete McGough-Pose, and me and my brother Keegan, we own this food truck. Everything Apple. 

We currently now... it was started by my brother and our grandfather. He unfortunately just passed away about a month ago. In that time a couple months ago, we’ve been refurbishing it getting it out to tap rooms and things like that. Polishing it up, getting the equipment up to date. It’s been going really well so far. 

Right now we’re at Bang [Brewing], like I was saying, we are all electric, so we are able to just plug into these guys through a couple of cords and run it nice and quiet. 

Normally we’ve got a couple of real new Honda generators. 

Keegan: A Honda EU 7000 and a Honda EU 3000 

Pete: Yeah those are really nice generators they’re pretty much brand new, and they’ve got a nice eco drive and everything. They can run us pretty efficiently and nice like that, but it’s pretty nice to just be able to plug in here. 

Twin City Sidewalks: It’s pretty quiet! That's one of the things that I care about. 

Pete: That’s what really nice about the really new Hondas that we have, they’re incredibly quiet. We even had a couple customers come up to us while we were serving and they asked us if our generators were running. And I took a second to just check and make sure that yeah they are. So that’s nice.  

Twin City Sidewalks: I was in Portland almost ten years ago, and saw lots of food truck parks with the plug-ins. It's nice because you can sit around with the tables and you can hear each other and enjoy being in the city while you hang out. 

Pete: I think that would be really cool too. I was talking to the owners [Sandy and Jay, of Bang Brewing] and they had mentioned how they were thinking that they were going to put in a plug-in right down here [by the curb] so that when we pull in, they can just plug in right there. 

Right now we have it worked out well where its low voltage what we’ve got going on. We don’t have  a fryer in here right now so we’ve been able to work our way around  

Twin City Sidewalks: How do you get the brats to taste so good? 

Pete: We hand case them. We grind them fresh. We have our grandfather’s spice recipe, and we mix them with small chunks of Granny Smith apple. Then we hand case them, and cook them in our professional kitchen and get them nice and fresh for you here. 

Twin City Sidewalks: Is there anything else folks need to know about Everything Apple? 

Pete: I guess we’re really new to this, I’m really new to this, so I’m not really too sure what I should put out there but I really appreciate the interest.

According to Sandy Boss Febbo, the co-owner of Bang, she prefers food trucks that can run on electricity and makes a point to book trucks that can do this.

A Honda EU 7000 runs about $4,000, which is a lot of money, so there's an equity aspect to quiet food trucks. That's exactly why I really want to see more electric options, which would be easier for entrepreneurs of all backgrounds to use.

Anyway, I hope plug-ins for food trucks catch on. It might seem petty to complain about generator noise, but as is often the case with good urbanism, the devil is in the details. Sometimes, as with Bang Brewing and Everything Apple, the little things like noise, texture, seating, shade, and street design come together to great a perfect urban experience.

Oh, and the apple brat is really good too.