May 23, 2024

Big Rig BBQ is back on the street as a food truck.

Bob and Nichole Brenner started the business in 2015, serving take-out Texas-style barbecue from a former drive-thru coffee cabin on South Louise Avenue, with the smoker inside a customized trailer. In late 2016, they opened a restaurant next to Little Caesars at 41st Street and Minnesota Avenue, but that closed about three year later.

They have been doing limited catering for big events since then and did a few spur-of-the-moment sales during the pandemic, “trying to make everybody happy,” Bob Brenner said.

He kept busy with selling semi-trucks as he has done for decades – that’s where Big Rig BBQ got its name – and Nichole went back to graphic design work.

So what spurred them back onto the streets?

Their now-college-age daughters, Auburn and Avalon, are home for the summer and remember the fun they had helping out and wanted to get involved again.

Nichole, Bob and Avalon Brenner

“I think we can make some happy people, pretty happy people,” Brenner said.

They had a line of customers waiting for their return Saturday. The trailer was parked again along Louise, but this time in the parking lot of the new Roy’zzz cannabis dispensary at 2520 S. Louise Ave.

The menu was brisket, ribs and pulled pork, either by the half-pound, bone or full rack and brisket or pulled pork sandwiches.

Nichole Brenner made her Oreo Fluff and cornbread that fans would remember, and there were smoked green beans too.

It’s the original trailer, but “the girls and I, we had this like tore apart, short of taking the boards off,” he said. There are new screens, and the smoker got a new coat of high-heat black paint.

Over the years, “I’ve had multiple people ask, ‘Can I buy your trailer?’ It’s like it’s another kid” as there was no way Brenner would part with it.

The Roy’zzz parking lot might end up being their home base. That’s where they were Tuesday, and they’ll be there today and Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., or earlier if they sell out.

Brenner said the plan is to serve lunch Monday through Friday and do occasional pop-ups at other businesses like they did Wednesday at SDN Communications.

Whether they do catering jobs on the weekends will depend on the girls’ interest, Brenner said.

Find updates on locations on the Big Rig BBQ Facebook page.

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