Food Trucks New Orleans is a group effort between Erica Normand, Brett Burmeister, and Lizzy Caston. We all have different backgrounds, but two things bond us together: Our love of good eats and our love of New Orleans.
Erica Normand has nearly 15 years experience on the marketing side of the food industry, but a lifetime of love for it. Originally from New Orleans, Erica’s philosophy on food in general is eat fresh, buy and use local ingredients in order to help support and build the local culinary landscape. One of her favorite things to do is travel for food. From Chicago to Paris, Miami to Panama, eating local cuisine, on and off the street, invites you to really taste the culture of a city.
Watching the food truck craze across the nation gradually expand, Erica thought that her own city needed the same attention and connected with the two Food Cart Portland experts, Lizzy and Brett. This year, she open Joy Ride Bike Rentals and continues to work in graphic design, marketing and public relations in the New Orleans neighborhood, Faubourg St. John.
Brett Burmeister is a long time street food fan having enjoyed his first burrito from a street cart in 1991. Since then, he has eaten at nearly 300 different carts and trucks throughout his hometown Portland, Oregon and around the nation. Owner and managing editor of FoodCartsPortand.com, Brett has become the ambassador for Portland’s street food scene and along with local media attention has been in the LA Times, Chicago Sun Times, Men’s Health, CBC Radio 4, The Globe and Mail, MSNBC and various Food Network shows. Brett loves his street food, but more than that enjoys learning about the cuisine and the creators behind it. Profiling the vendors and their stories is integral in understanding what you’re eating. Get the story and you’ll enjoy that taco even more.
Brett lives in Portland Oregon with his family, a few chihuahuas and urban chickens, but loves to travel and eat on the street. He’ll see you at the trucks.
Lizzy Caston has been documenting food trucks since 2007, and has been an avid street food fan for much longer than that – eating her way through carts, trucks, and stalls around the world. Her work has appeared and been referenced in places such as the Oregonian, Willamette Week, Edible Portland, The New York Times, and CNN.
In her formative years, she worked in food establishments as diverse as a high-end Japanese restaurant in a large East Coast city, to a grease-pit diner off Interstate 5 in the Pacific NW. And she claims to still have a nasty case of espresso wrist from the 10 billion lattes made during her barista years. With an educational background that includes food sciences, communications and politics, she takes take a big picture view of the role that all things gastronomic have in shaping the economy, culture, identity, and eve- changing food scene in both New Orleans and beyond. She currently runs the imaginatively named communications firm Lizzy Caston Communications and continues to work directly with clients such as food vendors, non-profits, and governments who want to bring more street food into their cities.
