Galliformes food truck dishes Cornish hen, quail eggs

LANSING - Gone are the days when Brett Morris stood on the corner of Saginaw and Cedar streets in his chef’s uniform asking for donations to fund his food truck.

After months of cooking for donations and crowdfunding online, he’s in business.

“Now I feel I’ve got something to offer for (the donors') money,” said Morris, who opened the food truck Oct. 10. “I think it’s paying off. Every day business growing and people bring their friends back.”

On Tuesday, Morris shoveled out orders of deviled duck eggs and butter pecan grits to a steady crowd of customers at the Capital City Food Court at 500 E. Oakland Ave. Galliformes also serves breakfast all day whether it's cheesecake-flavored pancakes or the French toast topped with a quail egg.

“Any type of egg that I can buy, I’m going to do something with,” Morris explained.

The menu also features Cornish hen, chicken wings and a turkey ciabatta sandwich.

“I do not like sweet grits, but he let me try some and when I did, I said, ‘Give me some of that, too,’” said Emma Williams as she wrapped up her meal. “Once people find out about (Galliformes), this place will be loaded.”

Galliformes is the order of large, heavy-bodied birds that includes turkeys, chickens and quail. Morris likes to experiment with different products from all of them.

“He’s got to be different, it’s the only way he’ll make it,” said Frank Tignanelli, the owner of Detroit Frankie's Wood Fired Brick Oven, who has been operating out of the food court for two years now. “I’ve liked what I had so far. He’s only been doing it a few weeks and he’s getting better every day.”

For the first few months of summer, Frankie’s was alone in the otherwise vacant parking lot. As summer wrapped up, Backyard BBQ and Maria’s Cuisine, a Mexican food truck, joined.

Now the place is starting to look like a food court, Tignanelli said.

“It’s going good; it’s October, and we have four vendors here,” he said. “It’s awesome. I think next year we’ll have eight or 12 trucks here."

They’re building an atmosphere, too. Each truck has a few lawn chairs and some tables placed near their counters for people to eat. Morris put a Nerf football in the side pocket of one of his lawn chairs in case people want to play catch while they wait.

“It’s a fun place to hang out,” Morris said.

The food trucks will stick it out until early November. Galliformes’ tentative last day is Nov. 10. Until then, the food truck will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day.

“I wish I had more time this season, but it’s enough time to try it out and play with my menu,” Morris said, who plans on reopening in April.

It’s also enough time to see if his truck is feasible. Morris’ goal was to raise $10,000 to get his food truck running. He scrounged up roughly $6,000 between working events and collecting donations and put the rest on a credit card.

“It’s definitely covering the credit card debt,” he said. “The way it’s going, I think (profits) will pick up a lot."

Contact Alexander Alusheff at (517) 388-5973 or aalusheff@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexalusheff.