Jason Howey flipped grilled cheeses in his trailer with the flick of his wrist. When he's at the grill, the career grilled cheese-maker gets into a gooey groove.
Every weekend, Howey parks his trailer — which doubles as a fully equipped kitchen attached to his pick-up truck — on a blacktop parking lot at the corner of Northwest 55th Street and Newberry Road.
He swings open the front door and window of the trailer and serves his sandwiches to jean- and T-shirt-clad Gainesville folk while cars whiz past.
On Thursday, it will be time for Howey, 36, and his business partner and girlfriend Cara Miller, 31, to set up shop at a music festival in North Florida. The two will park their wagon on a dirt path in the middle of the woods and serve sandwiches to teenagers running around in butterfly wings and men humming Grateful Dead songs in tie-dyed garb.
This is the life of the Grilled Cheese Wagon. When music festival season picks up, the wagon migrates from the cement parking lot to places like Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park, a campground an hour's drive north of Gainesville.
"Good vibes and good food is what we live by, whether we are here in Gainesville or at a festival," Howey said.
It was the light-hearted mood that routinely brought Gainesville resident Dwynette Smith back to the wagon, despite her lactose intolerance.
"It's more than worth it," the 34-year-old said. "These grilled cheeses are delicious, and he is such a nice guy. We're always sad to see the wagon go."
There's nothing special about his grilled cheese, Howey said. It's a sandwich made with white or wheat bread and American, Provolone or Swiss cheese, and it costs $3. Customers can add various vegetables, bacon, tempeh and chicken — all made in the county — to their sandwiches. The more you add, the more you pay.
"We're not doing rocket science here," Howey said. "We're not using fancy artisan bread or fancy cheeses. We just do it perfectly toasted and lightly steamed to make sure it's cooked through the middle."
Howey has been making grilled cheese sandwiches for almost a decade.
In 2004, he took over making sandwiches at Tim and Terry's, a former bar in Gainesville that featured folk and bluegrass music. Most of the time, customers demanded his grilled cheese.
It was at the bar that Howey, who usually wears a folk band T-shirt and hides his short hair under a rugged baseball cap, cultivated his carefree mentality.
Howey tended the bar and made grilled cheeses at Tim and Terry's until 2009, just before it closed.
When a monthly one-night music festival in Alachua called Farm to Family decided to expand to two nights in April 2008, Howey was asked to use his grilled cheese-making expertise from the bar to help feed the crowd. He and Miller bought a pop-up camper and an electric griddle and called themselves a snack hut. They cooked grilled cheeses through the night.
The hut became a hit.
One year later, after cooking at Farm to Family every month, the two saw an ad for a kitchen trailer on Craigslist and bought it. They named it the Grilled Cheese Wagon.
Miller, an avid doodler, drew a picture of a grilled cheese sandwich in an old, red Radio Flyer wagon on the back of an order slip three years ago.
The wagon became known as the business's symbol at small festivals that attracted a couple hundred people. Eventually, they applied to serve food at larger festivals in Florida where thousands gather, and they were accepted.
Now, they have become "festival foodies," people who serve at music festivals in Florida once or twice almost every month.
"What we are now seemed kind of far-fetched at the time," Miller said. "We didn't expect to get this big."
On off-weekends, Howey and Miller will set up the wagon in the parking lot to serve lunch and dinner to in-town regulars.
Then, once again, it's off to the festival scene.
Selling food at these events can get competitive. People are trying to sell as much of their food as they can, Howey said. It is a business, after all, but they try not to step on anyone's toes.
The wagon should be back in the parking lot during the first weekend in March.
"We'll always come back," Howey said. "Gainesville's home, and we love our family here as much we love our festival family."
Jason Howey, 36, of Williston, works at the Grilled Cheese Wagon food truck. He'll soon be on the road serving at Florida music festivals.
