- Michael Gebert
- Don Curry and the Southern Pitch food truck
Don Curry hands me a business card from MacCormac College, a business college in the Loop where he teaches courses in entrepreneurship. Frankly, though, his commitment to the idea of entrepreneurship, especially for African-Americans in Chicago, was already pretty apparent—as unmissable as the 25-foot-long food truck he’s standing in front of, decorated with images of Negro League players like Satchel Paige and Rube Foster and old newspaper stories about long-ago games. This is the Southern Pitch food truck, whose slogan is “Enjoy the Food, Digest the History,” and he launched it, peddling both items, two weeks ago this Friday.
While in New York he saw something he hadn’t seen in Chicago: a thriving food truck scene. “I met this guy on a strip of food trucks, I forget the street but there were about ten of them. I get to talking to him and telling him about my restaurant. He says, did you ever think about doing it as a food truck? I said, why would I? And he said, I’ll put it to you this way, I’m a five star chef, I worked at the Waldorf-Astoria, and I knew I couldn’t afford a space in New York City. I put $75,000 into this truck, and I’ve already grossed a million.”
One thing that’s different about the Southern Pitch food truck versus many of the others that have popped up in the past few years is where it sells. Although he makes downtown stops, he also has regular south-side stops, including near Vice District Brewery in the South Loop, around Hyde Park and the University of Chicago, and outside the courthouse and jail at 26th and California. “Though it’s just gloomy over there, even when the sun’s out,” he says. “But I guess they gotta eat too.”
