What happens when you purchase a food truck, but don’t like the way it looks? If you’re the proprietors of the North Fork Table and Inn in Southold, you follow the notion that restaurants are theater, and that your lunch truck is the set. You call the local high school looking for help, a local woman who designs sets is thrilled to help, and you sit back as the lunch crowd motors up to a trompe l’oeil of a truck parked in a vineyard for highend hot dogs and frankfurters (there is a difference), chili and lobster rolls, available in the restaurant’s parking lot at 57225 Main Road in Southold, seven days a week from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
“The impetus was sort of the whole mobile food truck craze,” says Claudia Fleming, the pastry chef and an owner of the restaurant. “But that was complicated with the town and the health department.” Leaving the truck on site, using the restaurant’s kitchen as a commissary and not adding any more seats made everyone happy, along with more than a few diners, who can expect homemade relishes, Fleming’s famous baked goods, a solid vegetarian sandwich on bread from the Blue Duck Bakery right down the street and a pulled pork sandwich. Fleming says the truck’s location has turned out well, as people already associate the restaurant with quality. And breakfast may be available starting next summer.
Oh, and the difference between a hot dog and a frankfurter? A hot dog is 100 percent beef, and a frankfurter is made from beef and pork.
