Christian Walther and Trey Bacon have four businesses between them, and they’re about to add a fifth: a new food truck specializing in barbecue called Red White and Que.
You could call them young and a bit overly ambitious. You could also call them super busy. But the partners say they’re having fun juggling their various entrepreneurial endeavors and are looking forward to rolling out their new food truck on the streets of Baton Rouge in the next couple of weeks.
For Walther, the food truck will be a departure from the nightclub business, but one that he believes will dovetail nicely with it. He’s a partner in two downtown bars—Huey’s and The Draft House—and in a music club planned for Third Street that remains unnamed but will open later this year.
“I know we have a need for more food options downtown, especially late at night,” Walther says. “So I figured we could tap into the bars.”
For Bacon, who recently quit his day job to pursue manufacturing and marketing his own sweet tea barbecue sauce, Tres Bien Que, the food truck will be a way to promote his sauce and also test new ones.
“We’re going to serve Tres Bien Que but other sauces as well,” Bacon says. “It will be a great way to test and demonstrate new products.”
Red White and Que will feature barbecue smoked on the spot in one of three custom-built smokers. Bacon and Walther say having three smokers, which will be pulled behind the food truck on a trailer, will give them more culinary flexibility than a food truck might ordinarily have.
“A lot of smoke houses only have one pit so you can only use one flavor of smoke and cook at one temperature,” Bacon says. “This way we can customize our different products and get them exactly how we want them.”
—Stephanie Riegel
