Food Trucks of New Brunswick: Heavy Kevy’s
SALISBURY–Kevin Robert has been in the business of food for a while. But after years of jobs that became less about the food and more about the administration, Robert wanted to get back to what he loved.
He now runs Heavy Kevy’s, a food truck serving a mix of old favourites and healthier options.
How long have you been doing this and why did you get into it?
I’ve been doing the food truck since May. I’ve been cooking since I was about 12, 13 years old. I’ve been in restaurants forever and as I grew in my career, by the time I hit my last job, I was doing about 90 per cent administrative work, recruitment and budgeting and forecasting and all that other fun stuff and I was only doing about 10 per cent cooking so I decided to flip that over and now I’m doing about 10 per cent admin and I’m loving everything else I do because it’s all cooking.
Was there any specific inspiration for the truck?
Working for myself was a big part of it. I want to eat what I want to eat, so why not put what I want to eat on my truck. We looked at the demographic around the area and put in some favourites. Club sandwich isn’t necessarily my favourite but I don’t think I could work in Moncton without it. Originally we had envisioned a much healthier truck, more salads. I didn’t want anything deep fried on the truck at all, truthfully, but we realized that while there is a niche for that in the Maritimes, it’s growing, it’s not big enough to sustain me right now so we had to supplement. We try and stay a little bit different, as opposed to serving just fries and poutine and stuff like that. I serve kettle chips we cook fresh for each order, deep fried perogies, something I used to do at another restaurant that I worked at. They’ve always sold well and it’s really taken off here. A lot of people seem to love it when they have it.
Do you think in the future you’ll move more towards healthier options?
Oh definitely. I think I might be the only truck currently in Moncton with salads. I have three salads on the menu and when I’m looking at meats and stuff, I’m going with leaner meats. You can’t get lean bacon so I don’t have an excuse there. There is a growing population of vegetarians and obviously over the past few years with the gluten free…either diet fad, or necessity with the celiac folks–we fill that with the salads. What I’ll do, as opposed to having a specific menu item and just being boring that way, I’ll take any of my sandwiches, any of my menu items really if I can do it, and I’ll make it into a salad for the gluten free folks. Or vice versa, if anybody wants a vegetarian option, I take roasted red peppers and cucumbers and usually a little arugula and add that instead of the meat onto the sandwiches.
How have you found the response so far from customers?
I think people are really liking it. Being the first year, first four months we’re open, we’re obviously going to be growing because our name isn’t well known but (we have) 4.6 stars on Facebook so far. Everybody seems to like it and we have a lot of returning guests, a lot of people who say ‘I had this last time and it made me want to try this next time. I’m going to go through your whole menu.’ I really like that.
Any plans for the future?
I want to see where it takes me for sure because it’s fun. I’m using my kids as labour. They’re 14 and 17 so they’re a perfect age for it and at other jobs I wouldn’t be able to see my kids and wife as much so it really is a family venture. We do have fun. We do argue and all that other stuff that families do if they end up working together but I do think that we’re spending a lot more time together and it’s a better balance I think than if I had another job at a larger place. As to the winter, I’d like to definitely see if I could make a go of it. I’d love to follow minor hockey leagues, get hooked up with high schools, winter festivals all through the province and I’d really like to see if I could make it year round.
It seems like there are a lot of new food trucks popping up this year. Do you have much contact with the other truck owners?
We all chat, a lot of us newer guys. We really do chat and we run into a few of the older guys and obviously there’s contacts throughout the province. From my understanding and the way that I’ve felt and just all the interactions, it’s not competition. We all more or less serve something a bit different. A few of us do work together on quite a few occasions.