Local Business Highlight: The Saussie Pig
Local Business Highlight: The Saussie Pig
Owner Tashiema Brown and his son Tre'Bon provided by Leah Voss/TC Palm
Tashiema “Beemer” Brown is doing the food truck thing in reverse. Instead of growing his business, he decided to downsize from brick-and-mortar restaurants to a food truck: The Saussie Pig.
“Bigger isn’t always better,” Brown said.
Brown, who moved to Vero Beach about 15 years ago, owned a dump truck business until the economy crashed, and he had to figure out something else to do for work. He thought of his first job at age 14 at a rib joint in his native Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“I moved my family here and I didn’t want to move them back there because where I grew up and here is night and day,” Brown said. “This is like vacation. I knew I wanted to keep my family here.
“So I went back to what I knew — cooking and barbecue.”
Starting outside Vero Beach bars
Brown bought a smoker and he hauled it around town with his truck.
“I would set up outside of different bars throughout the community as they closed, and it just kind of took off,” Brown said.
He then bought a small trailer and started working some events. He also had opened a restaurant in Fellsmere and a sports bar in Vero Beach, but he was done dealing with employees. He wanted a family-run business with his wife, brother, daughter and sons.
He had bought the yellow truck about five years ago, but he didn’t renovate it until two months before the coronavirus pandemic.
Because of the nature of the business, the pandemic didn’t hurt his food truck.
“We stayed busy the entire time,” Brown said. “This truck never shut down.”
Naming menu items after customers
The Saussie Pig is named for its pulled pork sandwiches.
“You don’t have to ask for extra sauce,” Brown said. “We put enough on there.”
The sandwiches are named after people. The “Bender” — topped with coleslaw and a slice of pineapple — is named after a “surfer dude” customer, he said. The “Harvey” — topped with bacon, cheese and jalapeno — is named after Brown’s partner when he first started the food truck.
“These creations came from outside of the bars at night,” Brown said. “Every sandwich that I have on there, it was created by someone outside of a bar at 2 a.m. And the names just stuck.”
The sandwiches are named after people. The “Bender” — topped with coleslaw and a slice of pineapple — is named after a “surfer dude” customer, he said. The “Harvey” — topped with bacon, cheese and jalapeno — is named after Brown’s partner when he first started the food truck.
“These creations came from outside of the bars at night,” Brown said. “Every sandwich that I have on there, it was created by someone outside of a bar at 2 a.m. And the names just stuck.”
