Phantom Gourmet Still Blacklisted from Staff Meal

The Staff Meal food truck tweeted a photo yesterday indicating that the Andelman brothers (of Phantom Gourmet fame) had been blacklisted from being served at the truck, apparently due to PG's most recently expressed negative views on food trucks. The blacklisting, Staff Meal confirmed with Eater, has actually been going on since the Grill 23 incident in February 2011, in which one of the Andelmans had an on-air hissy fit after a hostess at Grill 23 wouldn't seat him before opening time. According to a transcript from Server Not Servant, Mike Andelman described the hostess as "the typical hot woman, rude, cold-as-ice, never would talk to me in high school-type girl," because that's completely relevant to her hostessing abilities and why she wouldn't break the rules for him.

Over a year later, the PG brothers still aren't welcome at Staff Meal, and it looks like the "Do Not Serve" poster won't be coming down off the truck wall anytime soon. A couple weeks ago, the owner of Al's State St. Cafe (and a PG sponsor) was the guest on the Phantom Gourmet Radio Show, where he discussed how he felt that food trucks were hurting his business. Staff Meal owners Adam Gendreau and Patrick Gilmartin, who have always been vocal supporters of the food truck movement, wanted to counter "obvious disinformation being spread by a known sponsor of the show," and the Andelmans let them come on the show to clear things up.

Gendreau and Gilmartin apparently left the radio show unsatisfied, though, and Gilmartin wrote a lengthy blog post afterwards questioning the Andelmans' "facts" that food trucks take away business from brick-and-mortar restaurants and assertions that truck owners would be upset if something even more mobile, like a "food bicycle," came along. "In saying that, you demonstrate that you have no idea of our views on the food industry," responds Gilmartin in his blog post. "We believe in our food. We truly believe our food is the best food you can get in our price-range." And when the city allowed a taco truck to set up nearby? "We used competition as a reminder that we can always be better and welcome it as a great motivator."

· Staff Meal blacklists Phantom Gourmet [BI]
· Staff Meal refuses to feed the Phantom Gourmet [GSB]
· @staffmealtruck on Twitter [Twitter]
· All servers are good-looking, incompetent [Server Not Servant]
· Hey Phantom Gourmet [Staff Meal Blog]