By Marci Lutsky
If someone offers you a knuckle sandwich and that person is Ray or Elizabeth Klein, your answer should be YES! They are not being fresh, that is the specialty of their food truck named Bare Knuckle Café. If you have attended a local festival or farmers market in the past two years, you may have seen their green truck. They are growing in popularity every day, and with good reason. Their food is prepared thoughtfully and along with their daughter Emma, they are one of the kindest families in South Jersey.
Ever since I saw the movie Chef starring Jon Favreau, in which he buys a food truck, I have thought how fun that would be. While it may seem like an exciting adventure, make no mistake; having a food truck business is hard work! Ask Elizabeth about their journey to owning Bare Knuckle Café and you will have an enormous amount of respect for what the Kleins have created. Elizabeth spent 27 years working her way up in a local company called AK Pharma,. There she learned the ins and outs of marketing. When the company ended operations, she took a job as a secretary in the nurse’s office of Egg Harbor Township High School. Ray has a culinary degree and worked for 15 years as a casino chef before leaving, when he felt that he was missing out on important moments with his family. He’s been working during the day for a coffee company, which has given him the flexibility to spend more time with his family. The couple taught cooking classes at the EHT Recreation Center for 11 years.
When a friend called Elizabeth several years ago to tell her about a food truck for sale, she and Ray decided to go take a look. They took a leap of faith and invested a big part of their savings in a truck that needed a LOT of work. What they were never prepared for was the outpouring of generosity and support from their friends and strangers, who offered to help them fix up the truck from top to bottom. After 16 months, the truck was ready for their first catering job, a graduation party.
Fast forward to today and Bare Knuckle Café is in demand! They offer catering services in addition to attending festivals, farmers markets, and doing pop-up events. The menu only has one permanent item, the Sweet Memphis which is slow roasted pork, sweet bbq sauce , green apple slaw, and cheddar cheese, wrapped in a tortilla and grilled. Everything else on their menu changes for each event. Bare Knuckle Café was a vendor at the Linwood Farmers Market in the fall and everything that I tried from them was fantastic. Devoted knucklehead fans will line up to get their fill and it’s always worth the wait!
The Kleins are unbelievably generous. Born and raised in EHT, they strongly believe in giving back to their community. At EHT National Night Out earlier this month, they donated a portion of their proceeds to the EHT Graduation Project. Last year they participated in Linwood PTO’s Empty Bowls event which raised money for local food pantries.
If you aren’t following Bare Knuckle Cafe on social media, you should be! They do an amazing job of letting fans know where to find them and it changes every week. They also post their menu items so you can know exactly what to order when it’s your turn in line. They support other local businesses which I find admirable. The Kleins work very hard at events to deliver the highest quality food to their customers, but still manage to have a big smile on their faces. They are grateful for the support of the community and we are lucky to have them serving up such delicious food. I wish them many more years of success with Bare Knuckle Café! You can follow Bare Knuckle Café at https://www.instagram.com/bareknucklecafe/.
Marci Lutsky is a food blogger at Vegging at the Shore, www.veggingattheshore.com and can be reached at veggingattheshore@gmail.com.
