‘Street’s Eats’ – Local Chefs Lisa Carlson and Carrie Summer Turn Nutrition Into Inspiration at the Chef Shack

Serpentine Vietnamese mutterings combine with staccato Farsi shouts. Played-with-the-eyes-open blues combine with plaintive, just-picked-corn-on-the-cob pitches. Hands of every size, shape and color combine with homemade, jiggly jewelry pieces dangling from earnest displays like earnest acrobats. These combinations, along with a hundred others, form the center of a unique hybrid of transaction, and within the center’s boundaries, one of the many businesses on parade has turned combination into an unapologetic art form — Chef Shack is where it’s at.

“Chef Shack is a mobile kitchen serving up some of the tastiest street food in Minneapolis,” the company website boasts. “You can find the Chef Shack at the Mill City Farmers Market on Saturday mornings.” 

Poised on four licorice black tires, Chef Shack’s four licorice red sides are festooned with circus poster prose: “‘Top 10 creative food trucks in the USA’ by Yahoo News,” “James Beard Foundation Semi Finalist,” and the ever-helpful “Eat.” Windows become counters that become places of commerce, where cuisine is exchanged for currency.

Between those scarlet walls, different delectable combinations, as outlined by the business’s website, take shape: “At the market, you’ll find their famous Indian-spiced mini donuts fried to perfection, bison burgers, grass-fed hot dogs, bacon brats, sweet potato tacos, pulled pork nachos, market salads, and more.”

At Chef Shack, the integral combination from which all other combinations combine is the commingling of self-described “co-chef-owners”: Carrie Summer combines her skills as chief creative officer with the talents of chef de cuisine and lead travel planner, Lisa Jean Carlson. They met in 2001 when Carlson hired Summer to work at a restaurant Carlson then owned … and they eventually became partners in both life and business.

“We are a couple involved in a romantic, business, travel and cohabitation relationship for almost 25 years,” Summer declares.

The business part of that relationship took on a new dimension in 2007. After having worked a table displaying their motley wares at the Mill City Farmers Market, Carlson and Summer co-created Minneapolis’s first licensed food truck, where they focused on street food that is as accessible as it is affordable. Their specialties in those salad days incarnated in another unlikely combination, mini donuts and gazpacho.

“Some of the best food in America is coming from street trucks, a stand and trailers,” the self-styled Godmothers of Food Trucks in the North proclaim together. “We think people are adventurous and take a chance!”

Carlson continues: “The evolution of cuisine globally has surpassed my expectations … and energetically and on a metaphysically level; it’s a deeply connecting mystery of alchemy.”

The alchemical cuisine evolved within the Godmothers’ magic hands … as did the alchemical business creating the alchemical cuisine.

“We bought our restaurant property in Bay City, Wisc. — across the Mississippi from Red Wing, Minn. — in 2012 … the bar is 105 years old,” notes Summer. “Our restaurant and food trucks span between Minnesota and Wisconsin for nearly 20 years now.”

The wheel-free establishment’s name is, naturally enough, Chef Shack Bay City.

An outsider may conclude that Carlson and Summer have broken into the big time … but the big time looks smaller from the inside.

“I think people assume chefs have a very glamorous life,” Carlson supposes. “However, it’s a very complicated and challenging physical and mental discipline to execute at a high level consistently. We prioritize rest and meditation for creativity with hydration, fitness and nutrition to perform optimally.”

That dedication to self-care might surprise some … but the Chef Shack crew considers it a necessary ingredient to ongoing success.

“Working with food is an endless multi-disciplinary medium that is ever changing and utilizes all senses to create,” Summer insists. “It’s also working with people with no exact formulas; that’s ever-changing. For these reasons, it’s held my attention for decades.”

That attention has become a common one among chefs and non-chefs alike.

“With the rise of the Food Network and humans recognizing the alchemy between ingredients and the chemistry of creation, food is an art form, and it has been elevating rapidly in the last 40 years,” Summer observes. “I’ve been in the business over 30 years now.”

“It’s actually been nearly 40 years in hospitality for me,” Carlson garnishes. “It’s a whole lot more glamorous and respected than it used to be, but it’s still a blue-collar profession.”

That elbow grease quality forces a high level of dedication … and combines with a specific kind of freedom, as well.

“We own our land and trucks,” Carlson says. “We do what we want!”

chefshackbaycity.com
millcityfarmersmarket.org/vendors/chef-shack/