During lunch time on Mondays, the local food truck The Peach and the Pig can be found parked outside the University of Washington Bothell student activities and recreation center, while the owners serve hungry students, faculty and staff.
But for owner Nate Allen, opening a food truck was a significant career change. The 42-year-old molecular and cell biologist left the lab in 2011 after 15 years of research.
“I think mostly it was this idea of trying to build something for myself,” he said.
After graduating from the University of Washington, and working at labs like Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Allen said he needed a change of pace. He enrolled in the culinary arts program at South Seattle College, purchased a food truck earlier this year with his business partner Jason Unger and wife Lindsay, and started making the rounds last August.
They opted for a truck instead of a brick-and-mortar store due to lower startup costs, and the possibility of expanding into one in the future.
The Peach and the Pig offers what Allen describes as Old World European cuisine, with a menu showcasing hand-cured meats, pickled beets and mushrooms, gluten-free onion rings and vegetable dishes like roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon.
“We try to represent some kind of a seasonal item,” Allen said. “We make pretty much everything we use.”
European-American history touches everything at The Peach and the Pig, from a signature peach-based sauce to the name.
“It came from kind of the Virginia ham Americana food product, it’s like a vague Americana reference,” Allen said, heralding to a time when early American farmers would let their pigs feed on peach trees.
The procedural aspects of his science training are also paying off in his new endeavor.
“You gotta be organized, and you gotta have your goals in sight,” Allen said. “We try to think about the end product of our food and how people will interact with it.”
This means designing menu options which are easy to eat on the fly, fit comfortably in a box and have an eye towards presentation.
The Peach and the Pig also offers catering services with an expanded menu.
“We love to take part in that sort of thing, and we’re not limited to our food truck menu, we like to be creative and make sure our food fits the event,” Allan said.
The truck can be found everywhere from the North Creek Business Park and UW Bothell to Seattle and Bellevue.
Allen said they serve around 300 people a week, a number he hopes will increase as the weather gets better, which could allow them to hire on some extra help.
In the mean time, they’re staying busy.
“We are still enjoying it, it is definitely a lot of work,” he said. “It’s definitely been a big learning curve.”
The Peach and the Pig’s weekly service schedule can be found on their Facebook.
