With a menu as unique as its name, The Flying Waffle food truck recently debuted as a longtime shared dream between friends. Julie Derringer and Cindy Smith both work in health care in Lexington — Derringer as an emergency room nurse for UK HealthCare and Smith as an applications trainer for CHI St. Joseph Health.
Friends for more than three decades, the duo enjoyed collaborating when launching a few businesses in the past, Derringer said, but one goal remained unfulfilled.
“The last one was a sports bar, where we developed a menu for the grill,” she said. “It was an abbreviated menu, and that’s when we started saying we should open a restaurant. That was 15 years ago.”
Plans started to take shape in May 2021, when the Frankfort-based friends decided to open a food truck business. They began searching for trucks as well as a hot food trend that would get people talking — and eating.
They researched the finer points of operating a food truck and weighed different styles and concepts, including a kebab venture, but ultimately decided that serving sweet and savory waffles was the way to go.
With waffles serving as a culinary blank canvas of sorts, they set about creating, as their website describes it, “waffle works of art.” The Flying Waffle food truck launched in early September, popping up at Lexington venues such as Ethereal Brewing, Kentucky Horse Park and the Break Room. A Kentucky Proud food service provider, the owners source Kentucky-based meats, cheeses, sauces, spices and produce, including those from the Lexington Farmers Market, for their recipes.
Derringer previously worked as a traveling nurse and describes her culinary tastes as eclectic, while Smith most enjoys Kentucky-inspired comfort food. Together, Derringer said, their preferences meld into a nicely balanced menu, which will vary seasonally.
Some of their first waffle pairings have included jerk chicken on a waffle with Caribbean spicy sweet potatoes and a mango salsa garnish, and what Derringer deems the most popular with patrons, chicken and waffles. A pimiento cheese wa e, spicy hot chicken waffle and one topped with shrimp and grits are among other savory options. Dessert waffles include Nutella, Oreo, bourbon bread pudding and one dubbed “Bananas Stephen Foster.” The dessert waffles are served on special Liege waffles, Belgian-style waffles with layers of chunked sugar folded into the dough.
Smith said the Mary Margaret’s Lemon Pie dessert waffle was created in tribute to her late mother, following her recipe.
“My mom passed about 11 years ago, so when we came up with that one, we needed to have her on the truck with us,” Smith said.
Inventive sides like Hatch chile mac and cheese and street corn in a cup are available. Cooler weather menus will include pumpkin-themed dessert waffles and maybe a few soups served alongside waffle-based sandwiches, Derringer said.
For now, the truck is only open weekends and occasional weeknights at sites within about an hour’s drive from Frankfort. Bookings are promoted via a calendar on their website and social media. They hope to add weddings and other private events in 2022.
But Smith said the food truck venture wasn’t designed to become their new careers.
“We have both agreed that’s a firm ‘no’ on doing this full time,” she said. “We’re both going to keep our full-time jobs and be responsible.”
Though the food truck is meant to be a fun diversion, the research required, getting the truck up and running, mastering new skills and obtaining permitting posed challenges, but the pair has taken them all in stride.
“It has been the hardest, physical, brain-busting work I think either one of us has ever done, and I’m an ER nurse so that says a lot,” Derringer said. “It’s not the food; it’s not the food prep; it’s the nuts and bolts of parking a trailer and leveling it and getting plumbing correct or electricity correct, just the logistics of driving this vehicle that we’re going to serve food from. It’s been a lot of work, but it’s been a lot of fun.”