Rob Dean and Dan Mendleson have turned the simple hamburger patty into a recipe for success. The pair’s Burger Theory food van, which moves around Adelaide, often has people queued down the street at lunchtime.
The pair stumbled onto the idea for a food van in December 2010 when Rob returned from a working holiday in Canada and Dan was in the midst of a PhD in philosophy. “The idea for a food truck came very late in the piece, when a leasing application came unstuck and we saw the truck for sale on eBay,” Rob said. “One week later and we had driven the truck back to Adelaide from Brisbane.”
Rob and Dean’s success was recognised last year when they were voted 2012 SA Young Entrepreneurs of the Year.
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Rob said South Australia was the perfect place to run a food van. “South Australia has brilliant produce and brilliant weather,” Rob said. “If food trucks can work so well in cities that aren’t blessed with these things, and there are many such cities, it just made sense that they would also work in Adelaide.”
The guys have experimented with their burgers, even going as far as doing a series of “Art Burgers”, where they paired burgers with themes drawn up by six local Adelaide artists. “Of these, probably the ‘quandong’ burger was the most daring,” Rob said. “With quandongs sourced from Tumby Bay, we made chutney to accompany the Charleston Brie produced by Woodside Cheese Wrights. These were set atop a Coorong Angus beef patty and some baby rocket for a bit of balance.”
When he is not on the road flipping burger patties, Rob said he would most like to be spending time at the Port Elliot Bakery. “I spent a lot of time in Victor Harbor as a kid,” Rob said. “Then as a teenager I endured surfing trips with my mad keen mates purely for the pleasure of a pie and iced coffee once we were out of the water.”
For Burger Theory’s current street food location visit www.burgertheory.com
