Tony's Catering food truck founders take their cooking skills to Salisbury streets

It sounds cliché, but two friends are stirring the pot and on a roll. 

LaTonya Wilson and Sheri Thompson are best friends and, thanks to their grandmothers, learned to cook.

They also are entrepreneurs hoping to serve up mobile creations to hungry office workers, shoppers and passersby in search of a quick yet home-cooked meal to go.

Tony's Catering and Breakfast & Lunch food truck debuted earlier this year.

"It started off as a catering business and we wanted to reach more, and this is our way — to make it mobile," said Thompson, scooping homemade chicken salad for a customer. "We've been cooking a long time, most of our lives."

Tony's joins a growing number of food trucks on Delmarva's parking lots and at strategic street corners competing for customers. They intend to cash in on a growing industry  that got a boost in 2008 during the recession, when consumers trended toward "unique, gourmet cuisine," states the National Retail Federation.

There are indicators that consumers aren't tiring of finding more places to eat in general. This year so far, for instance, more fast-food restaurants are opening than closing, and the NRF cites a 42 percent gain in stores among fast-food businesses, compared to 9 percent that closed.

Food trucks are one of the best performing segments of the broader food-service sector, and according to 2016 IBISWorld research was an $870 million industry in revenues,

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Thompson and Wilson's truck has a simpler business model that skirts brick-and-mortar expenses. Plus, the truck fits with their catering business in a region that isn't saturated with mobile vendors.

"We didn't see a lot of food trucks, so we figured to start one," Thompson said.

Maryland Capital Enterprises touts the food truck owners as local "ladypreneurs" with unique products that offer more options for consumers to "buy local." 

"Fan food favorites include their wide variety of wings … (and) breakfast is served all day," said MCE's Lisa Twilley in an August announcement about the business.

According to the NRF, revenue growth was up for the food truck industry more than 12 percent for five years through 2014, and expected to make modest gains of 4.4 percent through 2019.

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Tony's moves around Salisbury and nearby communities. It was recently in the rear parking lot at Sherwood Kia of Salisbury, an auto dealership campus. A steady flow of consumers, many of them employees at nearby businesses, bought lunch and breakfast. Some stopped by for the first time.

"This is wonderful," said Diane Jenkins, a saleswoman at Sherwood. She likened the style of grabbing lunch to visiting food trucks in metropolitan areas. She pondered a menu of egg with a choice of bacon or turkey bacon, $4; scrapple and-egg, $5; or a wing basket, either with teriyaki or a slow-roasted dry rub, $8.

The signature chicken salad sandwich, for $5, is tossed in Greek yogurt with celery, craisins, grapes and apples, with fries that are fresh cut and not over-fried.

"It's like city living, like a Philly truck," Jenkins said. "It's cityfied."

For Wilson and Thompson, the food truck is a way for friends to work together doing what they love.

Wilson grew up in Chester, Pennsylvania, and Thompson in Salisbury. After whipping up recipes for friends and family and community members, they figured partnering on this venture was the next step.

"It's just fast-forwarding," Thompson said. "We started catering; people would ask me to do mac-and-cheese and different things. It progressed into something bigger."

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Holy Exume heard the truck was parked near his job at Sherwood Chrysler and rushed across the dealership campus to check it out. He said he likes the convenience and the taste.

"It's convenience because it's right at our workplace and it's great food," said Exume, of Laurel. He picked up orders for co-workers: hot dogs, chicken salad sandwiches, grilled cheese and fries.

"Prices are good, too," he said.

Tony's Catering and Breakfast & Lunch food truck is easy to spot: It is a bright blue billboard on wheels with a caricature-like portrait of a handsome couple, him in a chef's hat and apron and her with a curly cropped hairdo and smiling beside him.

The portrait is of Wilson's parents, Anthony and Agnes Wilson, to whom the business is dedicated. The company's name honors her father.

"They passed away three years ago and in two months of each other," Thompson said. "We did this to help celebrate them and to bring them along with us."

On Twitter@DTDeborahGates