Fried chicken is the star at this new SLO County food truck
Pismo Beach resident Brenen Bonetti loves chicken.
It’s a good thing he’s the owner of the only food truck in San Luis Obispo County dedicated to fried chicken, The Grinning Bear. The business opened about a year ago, in October 2020.
“I’ve been eating this fried chicken straight every day for a year now, and I’m still excited to eat it every day,” Bonetti said. “Just the smell of it, the look of it, the warmth of it. There’s so much to it that just adds an excitement.”
“It’s been a recipe that I’ve been just playing around with for almost 10 years,” the 35-year-old said. “I’ve had a few different variations of the spice.”
Customers choose from a variety of chicken plates, such as the Picklebird Sandi, a sandwich that pairs fried chicken with apple slaw, pickles, tomato, cheddar cheese, chile verde and lettuce, and the Nashbird Sandi, which features Nashville-style hot fried chicken and hot honey. There’s also the Six Shooter plate and a three-piece option.
The Grinning Bear also offers a pork belly sandwich as well as vegan and gluten-free sandwich options, using tofu and vegetables.
Plate options range in price from about $13 to $16. Side dishes are $5 apiece and desserts such as crème brûlée is $8 each.
Bonetti said the unique spelling of the word “sandwich” comes from his wife’s name, Sandi.
The inspiration behind his business’s name came partially from the COVID-19 pandemic, and his resemblance to a burly bear, he said.
“The whole thought was that we were just having to really grin and bear everything,” Bonetti said. “I wanted to play with that. I wanted people to find an outlet where they can get away from that and have a genuine smile and be happy and not have to bear it.”
“I’m a bigger, heavier set man with a beard so I always felt like I was associated more (with) the bears,” the chef added.
Food truck owner has SLO County ties
Bonetti isn’t related to the family that once owned the property on South Higuera and Tank Farm that’s now home to San Luis Obispo Public Market at Bonetti Ranch.
But he does have several family members living to San Luis Obispo County.
Bonetti lived in Arroyo Grande until age 6 or so then, calling Salinas home until 2004, when he returned to the Central Coast.
He got a job flipping burgers at Cork ‘N’ Bottle Liquor Store in San Luis Obispo and then cooked at the San Luis Obispo Country Club.
From 2008 to 2017, Bonetti lived in San Francisco, where he enrolled at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. He was one of seven students to graduate out of an initial class of 42.
Bonetti went on to cook at the upscale seafood eatery Farallon in Union Square and a Scandinavian restaurant called Pläj — rated among the top 100 in the city — as well as the now-closed Cliff House.
“It was a lot of fun to be a part of that in the fine dining scene and for a while I thought that’s what I wanted to do,” Bonetti said. “I wanted to chase James Beard awards. I wanted to try to get a Michelin star and that was just my focus for a while. That’s when I realized I was focusing too much on that and ... was missing a lot of life.”
After enduring long work hours and the high cost of Bay Area living, Bonetti decided he wanted to slow down.
“It was 18-hour days, six days a week and you still feel like you’re walking home with nothing when you got your paycheck,” Bonetti said.
Chef returns to Central Coast
After returning to the Central Coast a few years ago, Bonetti worked as a chef at Tooth and Nail Winery, where he won a Winemakers Cookoff award in 2018.
But a year of commuting from Pismo Beach to Paso Robles wore on him and he “killed two cars” driving back and forth over the Cuesta Grade, Bonetti said.
Bonetti next worked at Avila Market in Avila Beach for a stretch, helping change the menu there, he said.
He also helped his aunt, who owns Blue Moon Over Avila in Avila Beach, when the COVID-19 shutdown hit — filling in after she lost her kitchen staff.
That’s when Bonetti started thinking of starting his own eatery.
“I had this dream for about 10 years running that I wanted to do a food truck or something along those lines,” said Bonetti, whose wife works in the mortgage business in San Luis Obispo.
Bonetti found a food truck for sale in Los Angeles, and got to work.
Bonetti estimated that it cost him about $80,000 to $100,000 to get The Grinning Bear off the ground, including the cost of the vehicle, permitting, parking lot costs, equipment, propane gas and repairs. He employs one full-time worker and two part-time staff members.
Fried chicken cooked in special style
According to Bonetti, there are about 20 to 30 mobile eateries in San Luis Obispo County. But his is the only food truck focusing on fried chicken.
Bonetti said he originally cooked his chicken in the traditional Southern way — coating the meat in buttermilk, dredging it in flour and then frying it.
But his wife wasn’t fond of that method, preferring the way Bonetti cooked pork belly.
“I said, ‘I can’t have you more excited about the pork belly than the fried chicken,’ ” Bonetti said. “So we went back to the drawing board ... I omitted the buttermilk and I started doing a pickle brine.”
He also started using a beer batter, giving his chicken a tempura-like crust “so it’s not as heavy and weighted down with the breading,” he said.
“It’s more of a light crisp,” Bonetti said. “It just really opened it up to the new level, and being able to have just the flavors that I had already created in there with just the texture that I was looking for. It definitely made it special.”
Bonetti said his food is noticeably distinct from fast food.
“What people had access to at Popeye’s and KFC is not what fried chicken should be,” Bonetti said. “There’s a whole different side of fried chicken than what we were exposed to for the longest time.”
Where to find The Grinning Bear
Where can customers find The Grinning Bear?
The food truck is parked at GBeatZ, 675 West Grand Ave. in Grover Beach, from noon to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. The locale offers multiple food trucks a chance to park and serve customers.
On Thursdays from 4 to 8 p.m., the Grinning Bear food truck is set up at Liquid Gravity Brewing Co., 675 Clarion Court in San Luis Obispo.
And the truck is available for events including concerts, weddings and festivals.
Bonetti said his business offers him a sense of independence and adventure.
“I thought about it going into an actual brick-and-mortar spot. But you’re paying a lease,” Bonetti said. “(A food truck is) a good place for me to start to build my name again and introduce myself to the community in the county.”
For more information about The Grinning Bear, go to Facebook.com/TheGrinningBearSLO, call 415-573-4768 or email thegrinningbearslo@gmail.com
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