Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love
New Double Wide food stand summons Elvis with irresistible white-trash menu
Aiming to accommodate late-night munchies, Double Wide, the funky dive bar located between Deep Ellum and Expo Park, has launched an onsite food stand called Get Stuffed. From 10 pm to 2 am Thursday through Saturday, they serve a small menu of delectable white-trash treats, including Frito pie and The Elvis, a sandwich with peanut butter and banana.
The food is prepared in a vintage aluminum-clad Avion trailer — like a less-shiny cousin of an AirStream — that's positioned right outside the bar's patio. Because it's fixed in that spot permanently, Double Wide owner Kim Finch cautions against calling it a trailer or, god forbid, a food truck.
"It's a permanent kitchen," she says. "Originally it was going to be mobile, but the way it fit, once we got it in there, it worked too perfectly as a stationary thing."
Having food has been in the cards from the get-go, she says. "We've always wanted to serve food. It helps to provide food for people so they don't ever have to leave Double Wide. I used to think there wasn't room. But when the food truck thing started to happen, I figured there had to be a way to do this."
When it came time to devise menu, she consulted with chefs Jeana Johnson and Colleen O'Hare, who encouraged her to stick with the down-home theme of Double Wide. She knew she wanted Frito pie, and they took it from there: fried bologna sandwich, with bologna from Rudolph's Meat Market and bread from Empire Baking, and a nostalgic grilled cheese sandwich served with a shot of tomato soup.
"One other amazing thing that Jeana made was The Elvis sandwich," Finch says. "Given who we are, how could we not do an Elvis?"
Other options include chips and queso; the above-mentioned Frito pie, in both regular chili and vegan chili versions; and the "TCB," a.k.a. Taking Care of Bacon, which is The Elvis with bacon. The menu has six items total, and nothing costs more than $8. They will add items after they see how things go.
Scoring the trailer was a real coup. "I had been searching for a truck for months and couldn't find anything, or they were too pricey," Finch says. "My mom lives in Oklahoma, and she spotted one that a friend had just sitting out in his pasture. It was in awesome shape."
They gutted the inside, pulling out the vintage bed, stove and shower, and put in cooking equipment. But Finch kept the original cabinets; they're the kind that open upward and stick to the ceiling with a magnet. And she kept the vintage light fixtures with cool cone lampshades.
"It looks best at night," she says.