Culinary Cab

ERIE, PA – Don’t have time for a sit-down restaurant?

Hail a hot dog.

Mercyhurst University’s food service company, Parkhurst Dining Services, is rolling out the Culinary Cab, a mobile restaurant of sorts that will offer a variety of fare to the campus community and, periodically, to downtown Erie.

Food trucks are “a hot idea on college campuses throughout the United States,” said Kim Novak, Parkhurst’s general manager. “There’s not a lot of them, but in the coming years you’re going to see them all over the place. We want to be cutting edge here at Mercyhurst.”

Starting in August, the Culinary Cab will be open for business on Mercyhurst’s main East 38th Street campus on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., offering a rotating menu that on any particular night might include Smith’s hot dogs, a pulled pork sandwich (“curbed” with coleslaw and chips), fresh chopped salad or a Hot Street Walking Taco.

“We want to provide them great food on the street corner, make them feel this is fun, this is exciting,” Novak said.

The cab will also venture to Mercyhurst’s North East campus and to downtown Erie, though there is no schedule for when or where, Novak said.

“We want to reinforce that we are here to be friends with everyone else, all the other food businesses downtown,” Novak said. “We have no intention of taking anybody’s business. We want to enhance the city.”

The cab will broadcast its location on Twitter at www. twitter.com/theculinarycab and on the Mercyhurst University Dining Services Facebook page.

Parkhurst started testing the concept Friday with a lunchtime stop at Eighth and State streets. Another downtown lunchtime stop is planned for Wednesday. The location has not been set, Novak said.

Find the entire article by ERICA ERWIN at goerie.com <here>