Stephen Montoya
When Dusty Biscuit Beignets’ founder, Trey Smith, started his “sugar bread” side hustle in 2019, he was given an outstanding amount of support from the local sweet tooth community. So much so that he was able to open a brick-and-mortar café on the Near Southside of town at 411 S. Main Street. The irony of this is when Smith opened his café, he ditched his Air Stream and rented food trucks to focus on his new locale. However, customers would always ask him when he might roll back around to some of their favorite haunts after opening this spot.
Well, the wait could soon be over.
Starting this week, Smith announced he will be bringing his funky fried sugar bread to the masses via a new food truck — amply named the Sugar Bread Express. However, he is reaching out to all of us sweet tooths to help him make this idea a reality.
“Since 2020, we get weekly requests for us to come to events in a food truck,” Smith says in a release. “While we try to honor requests by doing pop-up events, we are overdue for going mobile and bringing the beignets to the people.”
To help boost this plan, Dusty Biscuit Beignets is using the popular Kickstarter platform to get the dough rolling, which includes rewards for backers. These include beignets for all of 2024, exclusive merchandise, and even food truck block parties. Smith says he needs to have a pledge of $25,000 to reach his end goal for the campaign to be deemed successful; a goal he says he’s not worried about reaching.
“Using Kickstarter makes it a win-win for both us and our customers,” he says. “We can raise much-needed funds to build out our truck and strengthen our business model, and our customers get to directly participate while also gaining access to exclusive rewards.”
Trey Smith
And Smith would know. He used a similar campaign to help fund and launch his spot on South Main Street.
“The funny thing is that many locals think we have a food truck,” Smith says. “Our email has been flooded since 2020 with requests to bring our truck out to meet the sugar-bread-loving needs of DFW. However, running a food business these days is tough enough, and adding a truck seemed like an impossible task until now.”
Once the crowdfunding is in place, Smith says the funds will go to an efficient and affordable food truck build-out.
So, what is affordable?
According to Smith, food truck builds can cost upwards of $100k. However, he verifies that his new endeavor will be more in the $20k range.
“We have an itemized breakdown for everything we need to get our kitchen up and going, from vent hoods to fryers, to fridges, etc.,” he says. “As we'll be buying gently used items, our hope is to come in way under budget.”
Besides the interior of this new food truck, Smith says he is looking at allocating funds for mechanical repairs and an upgraded aesthetic.
“This goal is a tight one, and we plan to add a hefty stretch goal that extends beyond our food truck,” Smith says. Our ‘beignet-in-the-sky’ dream would be to raise enough funds for the truck and to be able to fund reopening our shop for weekday morning[s].”
Dusty Biscuit Beignets’ brick-and-mortar location has been closed for months, almost to the point of shuttering, Smith verifies. However, a groundswell of local support has given Smith the confidence to continue.
“Having this truck buildout could possibly be what we need to turn the corner and grow the Dusty Biscuit into what she was meant to be,” he says. “My vision is for us to ultimately have multiple locations that bring French Quarter joy across the Metroplex. This truck helps the dream get rolling down the road.”
