Food Truck Mashup 3

Devotion to community, an entrepreneurial mindset, top-notch cuisine and unassuming aesthetics is a recipe for something special in the world of food trucks — and those looking to celebrate these nomadic delicatessens are in for a treat this weekend.

This Saturday, Motorco will host its third Food Truck Mashup, featuring food from Pie Pushers, Valentino’s, Porchetta and Sympathy for the Deli. Music will be provided courtesy of local bands Pinkerton Raid, Sweet Leda, Tripp, and The Fair and the Foul.

The Food Truck Mashup has an Iron Chef-like concept: each of four food trucks makes three dishes (one vegetarian) inspired by the other trucks.

“We’re looking forward to seeing lots of new people and new faces and getting a chance to do some new interesting products with the other trucks,” said Nick Crosson, co-owner of Porchetta.

“It’s very much been a good collaboration and good communication between everybody and we think that it’s going to be the best one yet,” Crosson said.

Jeremy Roth, general manager of Motorco, explains, “They have to work together to figure out how they’re going to incorporate elements from the other trucks, but at the same time they want to have the best thing, and they also want to have an overall menu so that they get the most coupons in total.”

Each attendee pays for either six or 13 coupons to exchange for food, and the truck with the most coupons at the end of the night wins. With the purchase of 13 coupons comes one golden coupon to be exchanged for a favorite dish at the end of the night. The truck that collects the most golden coupons is also declared a winner.

Roth said that Motorco switched to using coupons instead of cash for a variety of logistical reasons, including reducing waste and time spent in lines. The competition, he said, was a natural extension of the switch to coupons.

“One of the trucks will say ‘Hey, I’ve got 500 coupons, how many do you have?’ So we’re just making it official,” Roth said.

But despite the competition, the mashup is really all about fun.

“It’s very laid back,” Roth said, “There’s no lines, it’s a four-hour time frame to just eat until you can’t see straight anymore, then talk to your friends about what you thought was the best menu item from each truck.”

“I think it’s the kind of thing where everybody wins,” Crosson said. “It’s a great opportunity to get out there and show what we’re able to do outside of the box.”

The collaborations have yielded some creative results, from Porchetta’s crispy rosemary potatoes with biscuit crumble to Sympathy for the Deli’s jalapeno popper pork sandwich.

“We’re most looking forward to getting to taste all the great things that the other food trucks will be creating, and probably to getting a little more inspiration and motivation from the experience as well,” said Jonathan Richelson, owner of Sympathy for the Deli.

“I know I enjoyed seeing the other chefs take ingredients of mine in a direction I didn’t see coming.”

One food truck operator, in response to Hurricane Sandy, is taking the mashup as an opportunity for charity.

“I’m going to take all of my proceeds to donate to the Long Island Red Cross,” said Steve Valentino, owner of Valentino’s. The truck will be accepting donations at the event.

The mashup comes at an exciting time for Triangle food trucks, which have ballooned in popularity in recent years. Chapel Hill hosted its first food truck rodeo in August, and Durham Central Park hosted its own rodeo in October featuring dozens of trucks.

But Roth was quick to distinguish the mashup from rodeos.

“People liken it to a food truck rodeo and it’s so not,” he said. “We’ve eliminated a lot of the bottlenecks.”

Most recently, Durham’s City Council approved long-awaited changes to the city code regarding food vendors in its meeting Monday.

Among the changes is the removal of a rule requiring vendors to move 60 feet every 15 minutes.

“The consensus was that that was just unreasonable and hard to enforce,” said Grace Smith, planning supervisor for the City of Durham.

“It seems like they want to work with these types of businesses and make sure that we’re all able to operate safely and efficiently, yet still continue the entrepreneurial spirit that we all have in mind,” Crosson said.

But the chefs won’t have to worry about zoning restrictions at Saturday’s mashup, where it’s all about the food.

“It’s been fantastic,” Crosson said. “We’ve been able to come together and put together a menu that I think is going to be very interesting for the public and make them very happy that they came out.”

Contact the desk editor at diversions@dailytarheel.com.