Help The Flour Truck Hit The Road
Donation protected
Pearls' Peril
Hi everyone, my name is Jessica and I am the head pastry chef and owner of The Flour Truck.
I offer a full scale dessert catering and food truck company serving Austin and its' surrounding areas beautiful and delicious desserts made with local and organic ingredients.
I started baking in college to relieve the stress of my strenuous premed schedule and quickly realized that being in the kitchen was my true passion. I gave up chemistry and biology for the bakers’ equation and never looked back. My dream since I left college to go to pastry school was to own my own bakery. It's always been baking for me, and even over a decade ago, I knew I wanted to do it and have a place of my own. At graduation the dean of the culinary school gave a speech about reinventing ourselves through our food, and I don't think I truly understood what she was talking about until recently. I have been a successful wedding cake artist for years, but now I am getting the opportunity to reinvent my food and have the creativity to do so. So when I thought of having a dessert truck, I jumped on the opportunity to reinvent myself, and bring delicious pastry chef grade desserts to the Austin streets. I searched far and wide for the perfect truck and did so much research. I finally found her, and her name would be Pearl, after my daughter Ilo Pearl.
Specifically, I was looking for a vintage truck that would be insta worthy in the incredibly diverse food truck scene in Austin. I searched and searched and finally found her in California. All of my searches came back to this one place that seemed to have an monopoly over classic step vans. As it turns out my truck was actually in Arizona, which is where the shop would rebuild it. I did so so much research, and found some great references for this particular shop. I later found out that these were friends of the owner. When I found Pearl she was a beat up old ice cream truck, and we were going to make her a star, for a certain budget of course. Pearl is a 1966 Chevy Step Van. Knowing what I know now, I grossly overpaid for the actual vehicle. I was working directly with the shop in Phoenix and everything seemed great at first… This was over a year ago. After talking to the shop owner, I would have my dream dessert truck by November of last year at the latest. I bought the truck in May, they were supposed to start her in June, but this didn't happen. They started the truck in late August, and it was downhill from there. Excuses after excuses came pouring in as I tried to keep tabs on our investment. I had designed the interior of the truck to have more storage, it is a fairly small truck when you add sinks and a fridge, but the end result was not my design at all. The truck looked so beautiful by the time we got her, in early March, four months after our promised due date. It was love at first sight, in fact I was so blinded by actually seeing her in person, I didn't notice the red flags right off of the bat. There were so many questions I should've asked while I had the owner of the shop here, but new truck jitters got the best of me. Why was there no rear view mirror, horn, or interior lights? Why don't the windows roll down for ventilation from the exhaust from the engine? Why don't any of the gauges work? I trusted the wrong person and would soon find out that while the truck looked so unbelievably cute on the outside, she was basically a falling apart mechanically on the inside. The carburetor was shot, the back springs were collapsed and wedged up, the gas tank had a hole drilled into it, and there was so many other problems under the hood. This truck needed so much work on top of the "work" that she had already had. I am so lucky to have found an honest mechanic, Adam Dollinger from Dollinger Automotive is taking very good care of the truck. Because my interior design of the truck's layout was never followed, we had to add storage shelves. We added fans, ac, and a vent for the exhaust. The truck has been through so much, but thanks to Adam, she is working great!
Long story short, I spent all of our startup capital on fixing the truck that I assumed when purchased would have these basic mechanical necessities, and could focus on marketing donation desserts and supplies. I need your help to get the business going. I am so excited about the future of the flour truck, and am hoping for a sweet start. The plan is to park at a few different locations each week and to do events, but these locations and events will cost money. I will also need to pay for permits and my awesome commissary kitchen to bake in. Start up expenses are a serious bump in the road, but I am hoping that all is not lost on this dream, I trusted the wrong people and now I need your help.
For the more detailed version of Pearls’ Peril, please reach out to me at [email redacted] for the full scoop.
Also, check out: our website and Instagram to learn more about my catering services and menu and to drool over my latest works of art.
Thank you in advance for your support and I look forward to seeing you on the streets with my new and improved dessert truck, Pearl.
Jessica Binder Henderson
Hi everyone, my name is Jessica and I am the head pastry chef and owner of The Flour Truck.
I offer a full scale dessert catering and food truck company serving Austin and its' surrounding areas beautiful and delicious desserts made with local and organic ingredients.
I started baking in college to relieve the stress of my strenuous premed schedule and quickly realized that being in the kitchen was my true passion. I gave up chemistry and biology for the bakers’ equation and never looked back. My dream since I left college to go to pastry school was to own my own bakery. It's always been baking for me, and even over a decade ago, I knew I wanted to do it and have a place of my own. At graduation the dean of the culinary school gave a speech about reinventing ourselves through our food, and I don't think I truly understood what she was talking about until recently. I have been a successful wedding cake artist for years, but now I am getting the opportunity to reinvent my food and have the creativity to do so. So when I thought of having a dessert truck, I jumped on the opportunity to reinvent myself, and bring delicious pastry chef grade desserts to the Austin streets. I searched far and wide for the perfect truck and did so much research. I finally found her, and her name would be Pearl, after my daughter Ilo Pearl.
Specifically, I was looking for a vintage truck that would be insta worthy in the incredibly diverse food truck scene in Austin. I searched and searched and finally found her in California. All of my searches came back to this one place that seemed to have an monopoly over classic step vans. As it turns out my truck was actually in Arizona, which is where the shop would rebuild it. I did so so much research, and found some great references for this particular shop. I later found out that these were friends of the owner. When I found Pearl she was a beat up old ice cream truck, and we were going to make her a star, for a certain budget of course. Pearl is a 1966 Chevy Step Van. Knowing what I know now, I grossly overpaid for the actual vehicle. I was working directly with the shop in Phoenix and everything seemed great at first… This was over a year ago. After talking to the shop owner, I would have my dream dessert truck by November of last year at the latest. I bought the truck in May, they were supposed to start her in June, but this didn't happen. They started the truck in late August, and it was downhill from there. Excuses after excuses came pouring in as I tried to keep tabs on our investment. I had designed the interior of the truck to have more storage, it is a fairly small truck when you add sinks and a fridge, but the end result was not my design at all. The truck looked so beautiful by the time we got her, in early March, four months after our promised due date. It was love at first sight, in fact I was so blinded by actually seeing her in person, I didn't notice the red flags right off of the bat. There were so many questions I should've asked while I had the owner of the shop here, but new truck jitters got the best of me. Why was there no rear view mirror, horn, or interior lights? Why don't the windows roll down for ventilation from the exhaust from the engine? Why don't any of the gauges work? I trusted the wrong person and would soon find out that while the truck looked so unbelievably cute on the outside, she was basically a falling apart mechanically on the inside. The carburetor was shot, the back springs were collapsed and wedged up, the gas tank had a hole drilled into it, and there was so many other problems under the hood. This truck needed so much work on top of the "work" that she had already had. I am so lucky to have found an honest mechanic, Adam Dollinger from Dollinger Automotive is taking very good care of the truck. Because my interior design of the truck's layout was never followed, we had to add storage shelves. We added fans, ac, and a vent for the exhaust. The truck has been through so much, but thanks to Adam, she is working great!
Long story short, I spent all of our startup capital on fixing the truck that I assumed when purchased would have these basic mechanical necessities, and could focus on marketing donation desserts and supplies. I need your help to get the business going. I am so excited about the future of the flour truck, and am hoping for a sweet start. The plan is to park at a few different locations each week and to do events, but these locations and events will cost money. I will also need to pay for permits and my awesome commissary kitchen to bake in. Start up expenses are a serious bump in the road, but I am hoping that all is not lost on this dream, I trusted the wrong people and now I need your help.
For the more detailed version of Pearls’ Peril, please reach out to me at [email redacted] for the full scoop.
Also, check out: our website and Instagram to learn more about my catering services and menu and to drool over my latest works of art.
Thank you in advance for your support and I look forward to seeing you on the streets with my new and improved dessert truck, Pearl.
Jessica Binder Henderson
Organizer
Jessica Binder Henderson
Organizer
Austin, TX