Featured
Going mobile: Rollin' In Hot serves up New Mexican, American cuisine
Nicole Wood and Markus Ruegsegger鈥檚 shared love of food led to the couple opening a food truck.
The two opened Rollin鈥 In Hot in May 2021.
鈥淲e鈥檝e known each other for 10 years now,鈥 Wood said. 鈥淗e鈥檚 a chef and he鈥檚 worked in many restaurants all over, and I鈥檝e been in the restaurant industry since my first job, when I was 14. We鈥檝e been living together for quite a while now and we just decided that we wanted to do our own thing and share our own food items and our passion for food with the community.鈥
Going mobile: Rollin' In Hot serves up New Mexican, American cuisine
The food truck mostly serves New Mexican and American style cuisine. It offers a rotating menu of burgers, sandwiches, carne adovada fries and tacos.
Wood said the 505 Fries are a top request.
鈥淭hose are our carne adovada fries,鈥 she said. 鈥淲e make our own red chile. We put shredded cheese, fresh cut fries, shredded cabbage, onion, cilantro, and then a housemade creamy jalape帽o lime sauce.鈥
The food truck鈥檚 burgers are another item that Wood and Ruegsegger frequently get orders for.
鈥淥ur burgers are great,鈥 Wood said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just a regular third-pound Angus patty burger, but it comes with fries and two additional toppings come included with it. They can add green chile, choice of cheese, avocado and bacon.鈥
The recently-added Tuscan grilled cheese is another popular request.
鈥淲e added it to the menu six months ago, roughly, and it鈥檚 a vegetarian option that we offer,鈥 Wood said. 鈥淭hat one has mozzarella cheese on grilled sourdough, a basil pesto and sun-dried tomatoes.鈥
Business has been good for the Rollin鈥 In Hot. Wood and Ruegsegger鈥檚 attitude starting out may have been the key to their success.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 go into it thinking that it was going to be easy, so that helps,鈥 Wood explained. 鈥淚t鈥檚 harder than we imagined because it鈥檚 really dependent on the weather, for one. Winters are really slow, so you have to kind of budget for that. The summers are extremely hot and it鈥檚 pretty competitive, but we love working with other food trucks.
鈥淲e love the food truck community. Everyone鈥檚 really great and helpful. Even though they鈥檙e our competition, they鈥檙e also our friends. It鈥檚 a lot of fun being able to just do our own thing, share our food with everyone and just meet so many different types of people because we鈥檙e all over the place.鈥
The food truck has permits to serve in sa国际传媒官网网页入口, Corrales and Rio Rancho. It also has a temporary permit for Bernalillo County.
鈥淲e travel all over,鈥 Wood said. 鈥淲e do a lot of different types of events. We do private events, as well as caterings, graduations, weddings, anniversaries, and we do a lot of different (functions at) schools and businesses.鈥
Switching gears from working in a brick-and-mortar restaurant to a mobile kitchen was an uplifting transition.
鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 too much different, but just the change of scenery is actually really enjoyable,鈥 Wood explained. 鈥淲e love being able to not be in the same place and seeing the same people all the time. Even though most of those people that we worked with were great. But, being mobile is nice because you just meet so many different types of people and we鈥檝e found so many different events that we didn鈥檛 even know existed.鈥
Wood and Ruegsegger also learned how to adjust to smaller cooking quarters.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot more tight in the food truck,鈥 Wood said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like trying to prepare and load the truck and you can鈥檛 order too much food because you don鈥檛 have room for it. So that is a little bit different with a food truck, for sure. Markus has longer hours because there鈥檚 a lot of people going out to an event, anywhere from two to six to eight hours. They don鈥檛 think about the before preparation that we have to do, before the cleanup, after the food shopping. Some of our days get pretty long, but we still enjoy it quite a bit.鈥