Introducing: Food Cabbie, a new food truck with classic American comfort food
The Food Cabbie, an unassuming yellow-and-black food truck serving American classics, popped up a couple weeks ago in a car park at the corner of Queen and Jarvis. Already, owner Spiros Drossos has gotten to know the hungry mugs from the neighbourhood: George Brown students making the trek north and office workers taking a break from their ritual Subway sandwiches (including not a few employees of St. Joseph Media, Toronto Life’s parent company).
With a chef for a father, Drossos tells us he went through the “school of hard knocks,” and has been in the business for some 30 years. Originally hailing from Napa Valley—his Canuck wife insisted on the move up north—Drossos is just getting acquainted with downtown Toronto’s food scene. As the former owner of Vaughan’s Chicago Pizza Kitchen, the affable Drossos has plans to open up another Chicago-style pizza parlour, this time within the 416. In the interim he’s spending his time in a cheerful little truck where he can indulge in plenty of face time with the customers he loves.
The focus here is squarely on homemade American comfort food, including the ever-popular breakfast burrito ($5), loaded with roasted potatoes, egg, refried beans and Drossos’s homemade Mexican-style chorizo sausage (there’s a $4 vegetarian version as well). Another big draw is the Chicago-style “hot dawg” ($4), with an avalanche of toppings: tomatoes, onions, sport peppers, pickles and classic hard-to-get neon relish, imported from the States (there’s also a special Spanish sauce, made using Stanislaus full-red tomatoes from California). For his American burgers ($5), Drossos hand forms each patty—all beef, no filler. And the Philly cheesesteak ($6) comes with lashings of meat smothered in heart-stopping amounts of cheese. Those truly in the know will inquire about the secret menu, though we’re not about to divulge anything further.
Food Cabbie, parking lot at Jarvis St. and Queen St. E. now at parking lot at Mutual St. and Queen St. E., 647-227-2628
N.B. like any good food truck, Food Cabbie is liable to reappear in another location at any time, so it’s best to consult the Twitter feed.
