Slurprise

Question and Answer

Todd Patopea, owner of neighboring food cart

Victoria Taufer:

Todd Patopea is the owner of Taylor’s Chuckwagon food cart in Kesey Square Eugene, Oregon. Todd has operated his food cart in this location for three years now, in which he is able to bring his black lab service dog to work with him everyday.

V: What is the name of your food cart and what items do you serve?

T: This is Taylor’s Chuckwagon. I serve old fashion comfort food: five different type of burgers, five types of hot dogs, hand-cut fries, ice cream, ice cream cones, and Italian soda.

V: What do you love about your job?

T: The thing that I like the most is that I can bring my service dog with me. We are best friends. But mostly, it is the interaction with the public, and my regular customers. It’s really more personable, you get to know your customers by their first name.

V: Do you think Eugene food carts are different than other cities?

T: Eugene is a city that promotes food carts. Not all other cities do. It is a big deal in Portland. Corvallis and Springfield are starting up to. There are some cities and towns that absolutely don’t want them. I live in one –– Coburg. That was fine because I came down here.

V: How is the food cart community?

T: When I first started, the fellow I bought my cart from said, “Don’t expect to make any friends, its cut throat and you really got to watch out for yourself.” I thought “well that’s unfortunate.” However, here in the square, all of us are like a little extended family. We take care of each other, watch each other’s back, and promote each other. That is one of the things that makes it worth the while coming to work. I am a retired guy so this is a supplement. I wouldn’t have stayed in this if it was a hostile environment to work. I understand there is other locations where that is not the case.

 

 

Greg Brokaw, Managing Partner at Rowell Brokaw Architects

Victoria Taufer:

Greg Brokaw is the Managing partner at Rowell Brokaw Architects. His work is located right across the street from Slurp smoothies food cart in Kesey Square Eugene, Oregon. Brokaw is a regular customer at Slurp.

V: Where do you work and do you typically come to Slurp?

G: Yes, I work right across the street. She [Shannon] calls me a regular. Last week I did not come at all, but there are some weeks when I get a smoothie every day.

V: What do you usually get at Slurp?

G: Well, they have tart smoothies and yogurt based smoothies. I like the yogurt ones like the “Strawberry Slurp” “Mike’s Mango Mele” and the “Kickstarter.” I just ordered the “Strawberry Slurp”.

V: What do you think of the new options, such as the Cinnabons and the Spam Musubi?

G: They are good. I think I helped create the idea of Spam Musubi. It is a Hawaiian dish, you know. Spam became really popular in Hawaii during World War II. I talked with Shannon about it and now it is on the menu. I was a part of the development of the Musubi— maybe I will come down for a Musubi later!

 

 

Grace Kaplowitz, worker at Cousin Jack’s Pastry cart

Alisa O’Neal:

Grace Kaplowitz works the Cousin Jack’s Pasty cart. The cart is an extension of the main shop located in the Whiteaker neighborhood of Eugene. She does not own the business, but is the main operator of the Kesey Square cart, which has been in Kesey Square for two months.

A: What do you serve here?

G: We serve pastries –– they are English style little pies. You can get a handheld pastry, with either meat or vegetables inside.

 

A: How long have you been here for?

G: We have only been here for around two months. We just came here in the fall.

 

A: Is it just you working here?

G: I am mostly the one who works here, but there are a few people who can cover me if I cannot be here. It is not my business. It is a local business in the Whiteaker neighborhood.

 

A: What do you like about working here?

G: I really like being downtown and seeing all the people around, the local businesses, the other food carts, and getting to interact with people.

 

A: How is business going? Do you have regular customers?

G: It has been a little slow in the winter. I like it when people are around. We have some regulars, but mostly it is a variety of people. A lot of the people who work across the street come to eat.

 

A: What is your favorite item on the menu?

G: My favorite is our sausage roll, its wrapped in our pastry dough. I also like the pesto lamb pasty.

 

 

Jessica and Eric Thomason, owners of Wrap City foodcart

Alisa O’Neal:

Jessica and Eric Thomason run the Wrap City food truck located in Kesey Square in Eugene, Oregon. The food truck has been at this location for almost two years.

 

A: Tell me about your foodtruck and what kind of food you sell.

E: We are Wrap City, and we make wraps grilled cheese sandwiches, bowls, quesadillas, and soup. We’ve been here coming up on two years now.

 

A: What made you guys decide to start the cart?

E: We were both professional career people before this. I was a chef and she was a landscape architect. We decided to quit that and get married then move here and all that.

J: He was a chef and I never saw him because he worked so much! That’s the real reason. We wanted to see each other.

E: The last Thanksgiving holiday when we had just got together, I had just got home at 6 o’clock and she had been there all day making Thanksgiving dinner for me, and I was just like “I just missed out on Thanksgiving.” I knew that I couldn’t be a chef, and be married, and do what I wanted to do so that got the ball started.

 

A: Do you guys like working together everyday

J: We love it. It’s a blast. We would never have it any other way. We are absolutely living the dream. We are very happy –– life really couldn’t be any better.

 

A: How is the foodcart community here?

J: Very neighborly. It’s really nice. It is like our second family and we are very lucky.

E: We really are a family. There are also businesses all around, so everyone has a purpose here. Our customers are the best in Eugene too!

 

 

Jayme Monroe, Shannon’s business partner

Xiaoli Chen

X: Are you a full time work here?

J: Well, part-time, kind of. Shannon and I start together, and she is the one run at all. I’m kind of help in the background.

X: Who named the Slurp and why?

J: She did. We were trying to figure out a good name for it, and she said, “slurp” cause we want something just one syllable. Since we are going be doing things through straw, well, slurp, we just do that.

X: Why you guys choose Eugene downtown?

J: We started in the different location that wasn’t too great. And we really want to be on campus but it’s hard to get on campus, so we place to be here. Downtown is changing; we want to be part of it.

X: Why do guys choose making smoothies?

J: Shannon is from Hawaii, when she came here and there was no good place to get smoothies. All of the smoothies are not very good, she just want to make sure there is a good place for smoothies in Eugene.

X: Who came up with the idea that donator can name the smoothies?

J: Well, we work with a journalist as last year, they need to do a kicks start and so we decided as one of the big prize. You donate the certain amount of money and we will name the smoothies after you, so that was really fun and help named smoothies too. So just because of the fun reason to get start it.

X: What do you think about Shannon runs the business?

J: She did great job with it, that is definitely a learning curve, like so much more just like being open a day time with customers, much more these into it. So that’s all learning curve. But I think she does a really good job. Interacting with and keep a business alive.

X: After graduate from school, are you going be a full time working in Slurp?

J: No, I would probably not work here much at all. I will still help with stuff. We are going to start being open on Saturday, so I will help on Saturday but I will be a full time speech therapist. I won’t be able to work here.

X: Any plan for slurp in the future?

J: Well, originally we want a store, an actual store in Eugene, but it’s too much work. So I think eventually we would love to have something in campus to students, but otherwise, we will be pretty happy along this so, just being in here and a cart.

 

 

Katherine Bravo, Jayme’s friend and School Teacher

Xiaoli Chen

X: What do you think about slurp’s smoothies?

K: Very very good. I think it’s in downtown, there are lots of food carts, and lots of restaurants, but almost no one have good smoothies. One place you can buy a smoothies is Jan, right over here, but they only sale for members, if you are not members you won’t get smoothies, so I never try there. Especially the summertime, there is nothing like good smoothies, so slurp is great.

X: For what reason you went to the taste testing party?

K: I knew Jayme from work, Jayme invited me, I thought it would be fun, it was outside, it was summer. It was just like hang out with people and get some free foods.

X: How was your first time taste the smoothies from slurp?

K: It was very surprised because you never know friend, you have to say something nice, but they were surprising good. Shannon is really good at it and I was surprised the No.7. The Sweet Georgia Peach and I was like OMG, it was so good, people will come to the party and leave the party but every time, they will taste the one and say “oh that’s really good”.

X: Do you have any hope for slurp or for Shannon and Jayme?

K: I hope they can get expand, I hope one day they can get their own little café.