Daniel Shemtob Talks The Great Food Truck Race & The Lime Food Truck - Exclusive Interview

After winning the "Great Food Truck Race" the first time you said something like, "I was expecting Bobby Flay to call me up and offer me a show." Obviously, that didn't happen. Are you still waiting on the call? And if so, what kind of show do you want to do?

I'm always waiting on the call, I love Bobby. For me, I think the things that I get the most joy out of in life is travel and food. So if I got to merge those two experiences and be able to come up with a cool storyline behind it. Very Anthony Bourdain vibes, but maybe a younger generation of that. Because I don't think anyone could replace him. Something like that would be incredible — but no. No calls. I got to do a lot of TV. I got a good agent. I got to do a lot of little fun things, but to get my own show didn't happen yet.

So, a travel show. Where are the top three places, you'd go?

So, if it's places I've been and I think it would be incredible, it would definitely be Hong Kong, Mexico City, and Singapore. And that's because I had a restaurant in Singapore, I got pretty involved in the restaurant scene there. And then Mexico city is incredible and I think there's a good scope. And then Hong Kong, it's the mecca. There's so much variation there, it's so good.

You flew back from a detoxification vacation to watch the season finale with your crew. What was it like for you watching that win?

So I flew back from Colorado to watch the finale with my teammates and then Waffle Love from Utah came, which was really cool. It was emotional. My mom was in it and my mom passed away shortly after that filming. To have her on the show was probably the coolest thing out of the whole show for me to watch and see. It's like this amazing ... I'll always be able to reference that point, which I thought was really cool. It's nerve-wracking, too. You don't know how you're going to be presented. Of course, you want to make good TV. They're going to make it look as close as possible. So he had these insane lines, which they didn't show on camera and stuff like that...

But what they didn't talk about was, in the second to last episode, we had a 14 or 15 item menu and we charged $200 for it. That was a little bit different than Seoul Sausage's strategy of charging $30 and doing three items. So, they were more expensive per item, but we had a lot more items. In the last episode, they wanted us to price match. Because they said it was too much of a variance between the two teams. So we did and still beat them by a lot... It was cool to watch how that didn't get presented, even though it was a big change for us. We changed our whole strategy, the whole show. And so it's just interesting to see like how production finishes it.

You've said you changed your entire strategy. How did that affect you going into it?

Literally, the night before we had to change our strategy. Like the night before! And we're a very organized team. The reason why I think we're so successful on that show is all of us come from backgrounds of doing large, large-scale events. Jessie manages three wedding venues. That's the hardest job in the world. I have four catering companies. Literally, all we're doing is menu planning and strategizing — and Marco the same thing. That's our special sauce. 

[And] the night before at nine o'clock like, you say, "Hey, you guys have to change your pricing strategy." ... And honestly, I think it might've helped us a little bit in the last episode, because it was so busy that if we had a 14-item menu, I think we would have been crushed. I think we did like six or seven, I think in the final. Versus 14, which is honestly a huge difference when you're talking about working in a line and creating that many dishes at the same time... But I think one thing about being a food truck operator is that if you're not quickly willing to adapt and be flexible in these moments you're going to fail... What we did is we took the information and we just said, "Okay guys, this is what we need to do. This is what production wants. So, let's make it work."

You talked about the fact that "All-Stars" is completely different because everybody comes ready to play. What's your mentality going in it, 10 years after your first win? Were you more prepared? 

It's two-fold. I have five different businesses ... if I didn't have the five other businesses, I would probably prep a lot for the show. But for me, all my prep was pretty much getting the businesses to not need me for the five weeks that I would be gone because ... of course, you want to have confidence. I assumed I'd definitely be in the final two, if not final three or whatever. So, I knew I'd be there for most of the time. I had to be able to get the businesses to a point where they didn't need me, because I am the operator, I run a lot of things. And I knew if I could get myself to be free and not feel Iike I'm indebted to the business, or I need to help them, I can focus on the show while I'm there.

And by the way, this is the nature of reality TV. I think the pandemic had a lot to do with it. But the first time we went, they were like, "You're going to be on the show," four months prior. And we're like, "Oh, okay, cool, great." And then, three months prior, "Where's our contract?" Two months prior, "Where's our contract?" One month prior, "Where's our contract?" Two weeks prior, "Where's our contract?" Four days prior, "Here's your signed contract, you're on the show." In four days we had to do everything.

I was like, 'Wow, this is really sh***y." Like I can't believe they would only give us four days. We had to scramble to get a new truck. This time around, I was like, "Oh, it's the "All-Stars," they know they're dealing with a higher class of people. ... We're going to have more experience." And I think, honestly, again, I think it's mostly because of the pandemic. But I don't think we knew we were going on the show until five days, three days prior. The producer was like, "Listen, you're going, but there is a chance you won't go because if we don't get the permits ..."Because they don't want 50 people together as a crew in a city right now. It's high risk. And so, because of the last-minute nature of the show too, that was in itself, so challenging.

It took a lot of the prep away. I think when we got there outside of maybe three or four hours of discussions of what makes the most sense menu-wise, knowing the show's format. And then I watched season 12 and season 9 before just to get two different seasons to understand what the show is like again, because it's been so long since we've done it. 

What are the top three things it takes to win a food competition? 

Top three is tough ... I think teamwork and collaboration is probably the biggest one. I don't think by any chance would I have won, if I didn't have good teammates. Zero chance ... And then how you work together, how you collaborate. Jason who was on the show with us last time, who's an extremely talented chef, maximum talent. We don't work that well together. We used to be business partners. We used to be friends. We're still friends, but we stopped [being] business partners and it's because I think we have challenges in aligning. That in itself can create so many ripples while you're on the show. This time we didn't have him. And I don't want to say it was smoother or less smooth or whatever.

But the overall feeling was we were so in sync with each other the whole time that you couldn't break our team up. If you walked onto our truck, even from the first episode. It was the best production line that it would take ... One of the challenges in episode three, was I got to go onto Seoul Sausage's, truck. There's s*** everywhere. It's a mess. It's disorganized. They don't know who's in charge of what. The ticket system doesn't work. And I was like, "Oh, I forgot what it's like when you're with new people." It doesn't matter how good you are. If you're with new people, you don't really vibe. And so, luckily that teamwork, that collaboration was incredible. 

Another one is your network. It is what it is. Your network is a big part of your ability to win in these cities. I'm not from San Francisco. I only have a few friends there. I have no family there. That was a big challenge for me ... dipping into networks that already exist to be able to grow. That's a huge one. And that was a disadvantage for us, I think in that city.

The last one is menu development. Because you're given $300 to $400 of seed money, and you have to stretch that and you have to be able to stretch that at a market that's like Whole Foods, ultra premium, it's called Gustus, it's an incredible market, but it's very expensive. To figure out a menu that works there is insane. There would be nights where I go to bed and I'm like Rain Man. I'm like, "$1.98 Cannellini beans ... $1.67 salmon belly." And then if you can plan that altogether and hit on the other two, you have it pretty good.

Your food truck and restaurants are coming hopefully to a city near everyone soon. What is the one menu item that everyone should try?

It depends if you eat meat or not. If you eat meat, the Vegas taco with short rib. It's a taco I put on the menu eight years ago and it's just magical. It's a six-hour slow braise red wine, short rib. It's got horseradish crema and then arugula [and] buttermilk fried onions. When you get the combination of [it] all, it's pungent, it's bright, it's rich. It's got umami, it's got great texture. It's a gringo style taco, but it's just so good. 

And then our ponzu-marinated shiitake mushrooms, I go crazy about it. We marinate them exactly for four and a half hours and then we wash them. If you do four hours, not strong enough, you do five hours, too strong. So, it's really important. We do that with furikake, which is a Japanese seasoning. Cilantro chimichurri and queso fresco. And it's like ... Oh my God, it's just magical. It's one of my favorite things I've ever had. 

To get to where you are right now, you talked to a lot of well-established franchise owners. Can you let me in on some secrets? 

It was at Sweetgreen, with John. I think the better I've gotten as an entrepreneur, the more vulnerable I am with telling great people that I'm there to learn. I reached out to [John] and I walked into his office and I said, "Listen, you've created this huge, amazing company ... What do you think is the best thing you bring to your company?" And his eyes lit up and he was like, "Look at this core values book." ... What he was already seeing is how important people are to your organization. 

I started my business when it was easy to get employees, it was right after a recession. People wanted to work on the truck. The trucks were hot and I never really had a hard time getting employees. And because I'm so hands-on, the culture is exactly me. In the past few years, we started to expand. Employees are harder to get, especially right now, it's insane. Culture has played a bigger role than it's ever had, and having him to help guide that — it was just the right time. ... And then, I talked to the owner of Firehouse Subs before I started franchising and he taught me how to do my franchise business. 

When I go into a room, just assume that ... that everybody in the room knows something about something more than I do. And so let me tap into that. I feel through mentorship, I've become a 10, 20 times better human on top of being an entrepreneur. That's really where the secret sauce is. And I think everybody's different, but for me, I learned a lot from doing and I learned a lot from being, and so that's really helpful. I didn't go to school. I didn't go to college. So, [my education's] much more practical.