After all the learning and conversing you’ll be doing during Day of Dialogue, you’re bound to want a little snack. From 1 – 4 p.m., St. Joe’s is providing some mouth-watering meals by some amazing food vendors from around Philly. Here are a few facts about some of the vendors you’ll see there.
The Plum Pit Food Truck Caterers
The Plum Pit Food Truck features traditional and authentic cuisines, from Angie and Floyd Cahill, seasoned culinary masters.
For Chef Angie, being a chef is more than just cooking food.
“It’s not just a title. It’s not just cooking,” said Chef Angie. “It’s a lot of how you look at food and how you enjoy it and how you want others to enjoy it.”
The Plum Pit caters to a range of dietary preferences and tastes.
“If you’re gluten free, vegetarian, vegan, super carnivore, super carb eater, no carb eater, any of those things that people would need to know how you’re going to eat,” Chef Angie said. “[The original menu] covers it.”
Plum Caterers started out in 2007 as a catering business, and has since expanded its offerings. The Plum Restaurant Group now includes Plum Bistro & Catering, The Plum Pit Food Truck, The Tattooed Pig restaurant in Aston, Pennsylvania, and the Sugar Plum, a frozen treats truck.
“Catering has been the longest part of our business. We’ve been doing that for 16 years now. That’s where a lot of our skill within our own business was started,” Chef Angie said. “The food trucks came first and then the restaurants, but the catering just kind of merged into everything we do.”
The Plum Pit is offering their original menu at Day of Dialogue, which includes smoked chicken, shrimp, rice bowls and more.
Red Stone Pizza Truck
Red Stone Pizza Truck features a full size wood-burning brick oven inside a food truck. Established in 2019, Red Stone offers pizza, salads, wings and appetizers.
Jessica Caldwell, who co-owns the truck with her business partner Jorge Prudente, said her experience in the food truck industry and Prudente’s knowledge of pizza made an easy inspiration for starting Red Stone Pizza Truck.
“We were both working for my husband, Manuel Estrada, and his brother Gabriel Lezama’s [food] truck, Dos Hermanos Tacos, and knew that Jorge’s knowledge of pizza making and my food truck business skills would be a great fit for opening a pizza truck,” Caldwell wrote in response to written questions from The Hawk. “We also saw how popular the market was with pizza, but we wanted to specialize in high quality wood-fired pizza.”
Caldwell said aside from the basic pizza choices like cheese and tomato sauce, Red Stone Pizza offers two specialty pizzas that are the most popular among patrons.
“The pear pizza, which sounds strange, but is delicious, and the angry pizza, [which features jalapeño peppers and spicy chorizo] … are really popular,” said Caldwell. “Each pizza we create is layered with flavors, and we place a big emphasis on creating pizzas that you’ve likely never seen before.”
Lokal Artisan Foods
Former Hawk Charisse McGill ’21, M.B.A., opened Lokal Artisan Foods in 2018 after serving as the market manager at the Philadelphia Farmers’ Market. The inspiration to open her own business began when McGill’s young daughter opened a lemonade stand at the Lansdale Farmers Market in 2017.
“[The lemonade stand] made $6,000 in 14 days,” said McGill. “So it started with lemonade and [the lemonade stand] was called Lokal Lemonade, but I just kept the umbrella name Lokal Artisan Foods.”
McGill said her success helped her build more products and earned her the accolade of being the first Black woman in Pennsylvania to own a craft beer label.
“We started as a street food right in the middle of Philadelphia at the annual Christmas Village Market in November 2017,” McGill said.“In five years, I was able to take my little street food and turn it into a coffee, a beer and a spice blend. The partnership with Yards [Brewing Company] made me the first Black woman in the state of Pennsylvania with a beer.”
Lokal Artisan Foods will be serving their French toast bites and more at Day
of Dialogue.
