It took months of planning and 22 straight hours of driving for Chicago food truck The Happy Lobster to make it to Austin, but owner Alex Robinson said the harried trip was worth it to sell his lobster rolls at South by Southwest.
The former social media producer and Northbrook native opened his food truck with two friends a little over a year ago. He said a SXSW representative reached out and invited them to participate in South Bites, the festival’s official food truck zone.
“When they called me, I was like, ‘I’m gonna say yes, and then I’m gonna figure it out,'” Robinson said.
Austin is known as a food truck hotspot. Since March 11, when SXSW opened, until March 19, the day before it winds down, The Happy Lobster is setting up every day across the street from the Austin Convention Center along with local favorites such as Veracruz Tacos and East Side King, which serves Asian street food.
“Here it’s more park in a parking lot … They call them ‘trailer parks,'” Robinson said. “In Chicago, it’s fight for your spot every day and park on the street.”
He said SXSW is the largest event where The Happy Lobster has set up, and the first outside Illinois.
The truck’s four entree items — two types of lobster rolls, a lobster grilled cheese and lobster macaroni and cheese bites — center on lobster shipped daily from Maine. The crew adorns their dishes with small Chicago flags — with the restaurant logo replacing the traditional four stars.
Robinson said the logistics of having the lobster and fresh bread shipped to Austin was one of the challenges of temporarily relocating to another city. It took him three months to find an acceptable bread company, he said, and the one he chose is in Houston.
The team wakes up at 5:30 to be ready to meet the deliveries. They then prep the food for a few hours before selling from 11 a.m. until midnight.
“We’re very picky,” he said. “A good lobster roll is about fresh bread, fresh lobster. Everything else is kind of secondary.”
Despite the challenges and long days in hot, humid weather, Robinson said being at SXSW has been worth it.
“Financially, this is a layup for us. It’s just a no-brainer,” he said.
Compared with events in Chicago, the SXSW commitment requires Robinson to keep the truck open as much as two to three times as long, which translates to more sales.
Despite some of the advantages Austin may offer mobile food businesses, Robinson said he plans to keep running The Happy Lobster from Chicago.
But he admitted his team has said, “Hey, maybe in the winters.”
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