Food Trailer Debut: Seedling Truck by Royal Fig Catering

A new food truck will soon be cruising Austin's streets, a project in the works from the folks at Royal Fig Catering. Next month chef Dan Stacy plans to unveil Seedling Truck, an outlet of his culinary talents and and outgrowth of his aim for seasonal, local, organic dishes made from scratch that until now have only been available at special events.

Dan and his wife Kristen Stacy, co-owner and director of special events, opened Royal Fig Catering in 2009. With over 12 years of catering and fine dining experience, Dan has worked at various restaurants and country clubs in the Austin and Houston areas. Arriving here in 2008 from several years in New York City, Dan cooked under Harold Dieterle, the winner of Top Chef Season 1 at his restaurant Perilla in Manhattan.

Eater Austin spoke with Kristen about this new addition to Royal Fig's culinary portfolio.

When will the food truck be operational?
Our goal is to be operational by the end of November. We are in the process of fixing the truck up now, so if everything stays on schedule, we should meet our goal. We will be working with Slow Food Austin on their Happy Hour event at Rain Lily Farm on November 17th. This will be the public's first opportunity to get a sneak peak of the truck and the menu. We will be purchasing all of the produce for that event from Rain Lily and Farmhouse Delivery.

What locations will Seedling Truck visit when it opens?
We are exploring this now... However, I can release that we will spend our lunches at various office parks and businesses throughout the week. We plan on having 3 or 4 dinner spots, a Saturday farmers market (most likely Sunset Valley), and a more unique Sunday brunch spot.

What will the menu be?
The Royal Fig philosophy of simple, seasonal, and fresh will be directly reflected in the Seedling Truck's menu. Because we purchase much of our product from local farms, the menus will be revolving and consist of seasonal upscale American comfort food. We are planning on having different menus for lunch, dinner, and brunch services. For example, we may have items such as a Porchetta Sandwich with Onion Jam on the lunch menu, while the brunch menu will feature different seasonal benedicts. Many of the items fro our small plates catering menu will make appearances on the truck.

What prompted the addition of a truck to your culinary portfolio?
For the past 2 1/2 years that Royal Fig has been in business, people have asked us when we were going to open a restaurant or cafe because they wanted to be able to experience our food outside of the event industry. We have always had a love for the food truck/trailer scene here in Austin and thought it would be a perfect fit with our existing business model. The Seedling Truck is going to allow Chef Dan to have more freedom to create more intricate dishes that he wouldn't otherwise be able to do in a catering situation. We are thrilled to now have an outlet where we can offer our food to the general public.

· Seedling Truck [Royal Fig Catering]
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Chef Dan Stacy [Photo: Royal Fig Catering/Facebook]