Andrea Schwartz is a big fan of “The Price is Right.” So much so that in April 2012, when the Incline Village resident was visiting her aunt who lives near the game show’s Hollywood studio, she prepared for being the winning contestant like she was Rosie Perez’s character in the 1992 movie “White Men Can’t Jump.” Every day for one week, Schwartz watched the show, played the online games, practiced who she would give her shout-out to (around 10 different people) and how she would react if she won (hands up by her mouth), and, most importantly, made a T-shirt that said, “I Love the Price is Right Now.” The hard work paid off. Not only did Schwartz get asked to “Come on down!,” but she won the Showcase Showdown.
Then she did what any aspiring food truck owner would do. She sold her winnings (a Mazda2, pool table, and shuffle board) and used the money to start her new business, the Souper Wagon — one of the only food trucks in eastern Placer County and North Tahoe’s first mobile soup wagon.
Schwartz, who grew up in Incline, and her boyfriend and partner, Chad Hayes, both had restaurant experience, just not in the kitchen. Schwartz worked at Austin’s for six years as a bartender, waitress, and manager, and Hayes was a former bartender. But the couple’s relationship blossomed around food.
“We inspired each other to cook,” said Schwartz, 41. “We built a relationship in the kitchen. We like to cook for each other.”
After 10 years away from the restaurant business, Schwartz was drawn to return to it when the food truck craze took off. Food truck shows like the Food Network’s “Great Food Truck Race” and the Cooking Channel’s “Eat Street” taught her one thing — food trucks need a niche. Schwartz’s niche was soup.
“I like to make people happy with soup,” Schwartz said. “It’s comforting.”
Schwartz and Hayes opened The Souper Wagon last November. They tested the waters by trying out different locations — construction sites (not so great), office buildings (better), and events (best). This summer they set up shop at Concerts at Commons Beach, Music on the Beach in Kings Beach, the Ta-Hoe Nalu Paddle Festival, and IRONMAN. Their staple summer events menu featured pulled pork grilled cheese with chipotle barbecue sauce, a vegan chickpea slider with Asian slaw, heirloom tomato caprese salad, and a chicken-based soup, a pureed vegetable soup, and a vegan potato soup with optional bacon.
In case you were wondering if soup is popular in the summer, the answer is yes.
“We found spicier soup sells in the summer,” Schwartz said.
In the fall and winter, the Souper Wagon offers three soups (one of which is always a chili) and two sandwiches, as well as organic turkey burgers. Souper Wagon uses seasonal, local, and organic ingredients as much as possible, including grass-fed beef. The soup truck also sells 16- and 32-ounce Mason jars for $2. Customers get 50 cents off a pint of soup and $1 off a quart when they bring the jars back for a refill.
Souper Wagon found success at one office building in Incline Village, but otherwise Schwartz and Hayes realized that without the normal nine-to-fivers of an urban environment, they were not getting a throng of people during lunch hour.
“Because we are not a city and there are not droves of people coming out, we realized Tuesday is a good locals day,” said Schwartz.
On Tuesdays, the only day right now that Souper Wagon makes its rounds in North Tahoe, the food truck starts its day at 9:30 a.m. in Incline at the office building, then hangs out at the Raley’s shopping center from 11 a.m. to noon. By 12:30, the Souper Wagon can be found in front of Spindleshanks in Tahoe Vista, where it will remain until around 3 p.m. or whenever they sell out of soup, which is often. On the blustery late September afternoon that Moonshine Ink met up with Schwartz and Hayes, they had sold out of their three soups (around 60 to 70 bowls), including a new soup: organic broccoli and cheddar.
Schwartz and Hayes would like to start serving food on Thursdays or Fridays, but they need to find another office building anywhere from Incline to Tahoe City to park the Souper Wagon. They will also need to find a new Tuesday location because the Spindleshanks building is scheduled to be torn down in December to make room for 39 condos. The restaurant has to be out by Dec 1. This poses a double problem for Schwartz and Hayes since they use the Spindleshanks kitchen to make all their soups.
“We don’t know where our kitchen will be or where we will be parked,” she said. “We want to stay in the Tahoe Vista area.”
Souper Wagon will shut down operations from December to mid-February since they discovered last year those months were too cold, both for customers standing outside and themselves working inside the truck. Come mid-February, they hope to have a new Tuesday location.
Customers can keep up with Souper Wagon’s changing menu on its Facebook page or by email, and find the truck’s location on its website, thesouperwagon.com.
Although the Souper Wagon is facing some uncertainty in the coming months, Schwartz is incredibly thankful for the show that started it all.
“If it wasn’t for ‘The Price is Right,’ we probably wouldn’t have been able to do this,” she said.
No word yet on whether Bob Barker is a soup lover.
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