Eating green at Curbside

Ask Nick Hufft what makes the perfect burger, and he’ll tell you that it all comes down to three things: fresh beef, fresh buns, and fresh-cut fries. “They’re the flux capacitor of the perfect burger—get those elements right and you’re on your way,” he says with Back-to-the-Futuristic enthusiasm. “Everything else is an open canvas.” Hufft is the owner of Curbside Burgers, the latest gourmet food truck to hit Baton Rouge streets, joining the ranks of Go Ya-Ya’s Crepes, Taco de Paco and Kicker’s BBQ in bringing mobile food to the masses. And though Curbside is the newest manifestation of a trend that’s brand-new in the Capital City, Hufft is no neophyte in the art of great on-the-go grub.

Hufft got his start three years ago when he opened Moochie’s Munchies, a late-night-nosh stand outside of Bogie’s Bar in Tigerland that served up high-carb snack food to hungry, hard-drinking college students. The spot gained popularity with bar patrons, especially for its signature snack: a mound of fresh-cut cheese fries covered in barbecued brisket, a concoction Hufft dubbed “cowboy fries.” But Hufft says ruefully, “You can only go so far with drunk kids.” He wanted to expand his offerings beyond bar food and into something a little more challenging, that would also allow him to go home before 4 a.m. “I had the money, I had the experience,” he says. “And I really love cheeseburgers.” And thus, Curbside Burgers was born.

Curbside’s burgers are set apart by more than their ever-changing locale. Hufft buys everything locally. The beef is ground fresh every morning; the buns, shipped in still warm from a local bakery; the fries, cut each morning from whole potatoes. Even the pickles are made in-house, from cucumbers from an Opelousas farm. Hufft himself makes bacon for Curbside from locally sourced pork belly, and it’s a point of pride: Curbside took first place in the Hormel-sponsored NOLA Bacon Takedown earlier this month, with its pork belly preserves. “It’s bacon cooked down for several hours with onion, chilies, brown sugar and some other ingredients to give it some acidity,” Hufft says. “It’s basically concentrated bacon on steroids.” The popular condiment has proved nearly impossible to keep in stock, he says. Hufft’s bacon is also a major staple of the KGB burger, which features the pork product soaked in Hufft’s grandmother’s praline recipe to make “praline bacon.” This salty-sweet concoction rests on a fried egg on top of the beef patty, making it a heart-stopping, tongue-teasing mouthful.

Serving his fare in compostable takeout containers with recycled napkins, Hufft aims to keep his carbon footprint small while he splits Curbside’s time between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. He hopes soon to have two trucks—one to operate full-time in each city. In the meantime, you can find out where Curbside will be by following its daily postings on Facebook and Twitter.