NYC Chopped Cheese
Bodega Truck is the first and only chopped cheese food truck in New York City. Ride along with owner Jeremy Batista, aka Chop Cheese Papi, as he starts the 18-hour workday as early as 3:30 a.m. to pick up ingredients, snag a parking spot, and serve fresh, hot chopped cheese in the city's busiest neighborhoods.
Transcript
00:00 We are the first and only chopped cheese food truck in New York City.
00:05 Chopped cheese is essentially a cheeseburger chopped up on a roll with lettuce, tomato, ketchup and mayo.
00:10 The first bite of a chopped cheese is just comfort.
00:13 All the cheese is in every single bite.
00:16 To me, it's New York City's Philly cheesesteak.
00:19 Everybody knows what a Philly cheesesteak is, but not many people know what a chopped cheese is.
00:23 And that's what we're trying to do.
00:24 We're trying to bring chopped cheese to the forefront and put it on the pedestal because chopped cheese is better than a Philly.
00:31 I'll say that. I'll die on that hill.
00:33 The hype is real. The hype is real. Best chopped cheese in the city.
00:36 Morning routine every single day.
00:44 Since we are a food truck, we don't have the luxury of having a basement where we can store and have a bunch of stuff.
00:50 So we got to shop every single day.
00:52 Good thing I played a lot of Tetris when I was a little kid.
00:54 You got to fit a lot of stuff in a small space.
00:56 The supermarkets that we go to aren't open for the public.
00:59 It's specifically for restaurants and business owners.
01:02 So those places are open anywhere from 1, 2 in the morning until 7 at night.
01:06 This is the city that never sleeps, and it's very true.
01:09 At any hour, somebody got something to do and they're going to get it done.
01:12 Every day I just pray for the parking guys to bless me with a parking spot.
01:18 That's really the difference between an okay day and a bad day.
01:20 It's all on location and your parking.
01:22 This is the best part of my day, the beautiful sunrise.
01:25 I get to witness it every day.
01:27 I wake up at 3.30 in the morning, depending on my location.
01:31 And I don't get home until 9, 10 at night.
01:34 So I'm gone the entire day. I'm like 17, 18 hour days most of the time.
01:39 Yo, what's good my boy? How's everything?
01:42 Good, baby.
01:43 Right now we're grabbing propane to be good for two days.
01:47 That's an empty one. That's easy to carry when it's empty.
01:50 There you go. Appreciate you, bro.
01:55 It's hard to cook in the cold, man. I'm telling you.
01:57 So it lasts me like two days, if I'm lucky.
01:59 Alright, now we're headed to Story of Queens.
02:03 So we are the first and only chopped cheese food truck that travels around New York City.
02:09 A lot of food trucks, they stay in one place.
02:12 We're open Wednesday through Sunday.
02:14 We go to a different borough throughout those days.
02:16 I mean, you gotta show everybody love, you know?
02:18 I like to build anticipation. I like to have that on people's minds and schedules.
02:22 Like, okay, he's gonna be here this week. I gotta catch him this week.
02:25 Bro, this is New York for you.
02:27 Getting cut off at every single second.
02:30 And it's all about respecting when these come to the food trucks.
02:32 You gotta respect each other's spots. You gotta respect each other's locations.
02:36 You don't wanna park in somebody else's spot that's been there for years.
02:38 It's disrespectful.
02:39 Other than that, first come, first served.
02:41 Whoever gets to that parking spot first is yours.
02:44 Where you park and where you're gonna be that day, it's a huge difference in business.
02:49 A lot of people try to go to the corner because you're getting an intersection.
02:53 You're getting visibility from four different directions.
02:56 So if you're in the corner, statistically, you're gonna attract more customers.
03:02 So we on the corner of 35th Ave and Steinway Street.
03:05 This is our spot when we come to Story of Queens.
03:11 So it's 8 o'clock right now. We just got to our parking.
03:14 We secured the parking spot.
03:15 I don't open the window till 12. Usually I take a nap right now.
03:18 This is my pillow right here. I use this jacket and I fold it up and I go to sleep right here.
03:24 So it's 10.30. I start prepping all the bacon. We cook about two packs a day.
03:32 My whole day just consists of hitting time stamps.
03:35 As long as I get this done before this time, I'm good to go.
03:39 All right, so it's 12 o'clock now. We're about to open the window.
03:42 Serve whoever comes our way.
03:44 Got my manager right here. He goes right here.
03:50 These were actually my Timbs when I was younger. My mom saved them.
03:55 You see the kicks hanging off the wire, so that's kind of like a little small tribute.
03:59 All these stickers, this is like, you know, New York, a lot of people just slap stickers everywhere.
04:04 I don't know where they came from. I don't know who put them there.
04:07 But we just constantly, just every day, we're getting more and more stickers filled on this thing.
04:11 All right, we're good to go. Now I just update the social media, make sure everybody knows we're here.
04:16 We update it weekly. So, you know, we got it, the date, the time, the location and where we're going to be.
04:21 This is Jair. This is my cook. He is absolute beast. He's actually three people in one.
04:27 I couldn't have done this without him.
04:30 [Spanish]
04:32 [Spanish]
05:01 It's important to have a team that's strong and efficient because we are a small truck.
05:05 So it's not like we can fit five people back here.
05:08 It's like you have to stay in that spot and you got to be able to twist and turn and get to what you need to do.
05:12 Every day we get our bread, fresh, baked, delivered to us.
05:16 He does it that quick. He cuts like 100 plus rolls in like 20 minutes. He's good.
05:20 [Spanish]
05:23 [Spanish]
05:25 This is our classic OG. We start with a fresh patty.
05:34 Then we chop it up. We season it. We add the cheese. Mix it all together and you got greatness.
05:40 Cheese is very important for us. It's like chopped cheese. You can't have a chop without no cheese.
05:45 But this is our special blend of cheeses, cheddar and American blend.
05:48 So the cheddar gives it the pull and the American gives it like that gooeyness.
05:52 We take our bodega sauce. We throw a handful of fresh cut lettuce.
05:56 Put our prettiest tomatoes right on top. Take our roll.
06:00 And there you go. That's your classic chopped cheese made the right way.
06:07 These mini burgers were my favorite growing up so I throw at least two in every bag.
06:13 We got bags and bags and bags of them.
06:15 We got all your different types of candies. Bet you haven't seen this since the early 90s.
06:19 We got the Spice Girl lollipops. That's not for sale. That's just for the vibe and for the nostalgic feeling that it gives you.
06:25 We got the bazooka gums. Comes with the comics.
06:28 I grew up in a bodega. My mother owned one when I was younger.
06:32 So I had to help her stock the shelves and clean up the place and stuff like that.
06:36 It's a place where I did my homework. So bodega has always kind of like been a part of me.
06:42 As a child you don't really like pay attention to what your parents are doing.
06:45 But as you get older you start to realize like damn my mom was waking up every day to go do what she had to do.
06:52 Like man she went through a lot and now I see it going through it myself.
06:56 Like I can't believe she did this all by herself too.
06:59 It really makes me feel grateful for the mother that I have.
07:01 Yo what's up? Thank you. Thank you. Special delivery from my wife the sauce queen.
07:07 She is the brains behind this operation. She takes care of all of our behind the scenes things like counting, sauce making.
07:17 She also does her own desserts which we sell on the truck too.
07:20 I'm like the bodega truck superhero. Like if it needs help then I'm here.
07:25 And this was all her idea to sell it by the small bottle.
07:27 Our special sauce and people really love it. And I take pride into this.
07:33 She makes it in big batches. Like we have a huge tub that is like big batches.
07:38 And I'm using this machine.
07:39 That's like half her size. She's using this heavy blender to blend everything together.
07:43 If you think what I do is a lot in here, she does more than me behind the scenes.
07:47 She's very detail oriented. She makes sure that everything is getting put where it needs to.
07:53 And she also has a degree in accounting. She gets to run all the numbers and make sure we're hitting those things that we need to do.
07:58 How would I describe him?
08:01 You're going to make me cry.
08:04 A handful. A lot to deal with.
08:06 He cares for everyone. This is truly his passion.
08:10 And there's no better person to be in this business than him. I'm so proud of him.
08:15 I'm a thug though. Don't let the tears fool you.
08:20 So for our next sandwich we're doing our good morning sandwich.
08:24 It's a bacon, egg and chopped cheese with a seasoned hash brown inside of it.
08:27 It's one of our best sellers right there.
08:29 Growing up in New York City, bodega is part of everybody's lives.
08:34 Everybody got their own personal corner bodega where the man behind the counter knows them.
08:38 Just walk in and they already got your coffee light and sweet or three sugars or whatever it is.
08:42 They got you ready. They see you grow from a little kid to an adult.
08:45 It's a real cornerstone of the community that it's in.
08:48 As New York City progressed and got gentrified and modernized, you started seeing them less and less.
08:54 Your corner bodega turned into a corner gourmet deli or half deli, half juice bar.
08:59 My mom's corner store is a Starbucks.
09:01 We can do any of the sandwiches on top of fries.
09:04 Our most popular one is a Dominicano on fries.
09:07 You know, because I'm half Puerto Rican, half Dominican.
09:09 And that's our most popular. We price out minimum 50 of those fries a day. Minimum.
09:16 So each fry gets one giant slice of fried cheese, two salami.
09:21 We also add our seasoning on top.
09:25 Close it up. Give it a good shake.
09:27 Put the first layer of sauce to make sure it's good enough.
09:30 We lay that right on top.
09:33 We have fresh shredded cabbage that we mix together with our sauce.
09:39 Chop all of it up into bite size little pieces.
09:44 So you're getting fried cheese and salami on every bite.
09:48 Layer in some more sauce right on top.
09:52 Sprinkle some nice garnish on it so it looks nice and pretty.
09:58 A good morning for you right here. Thank you.
10:02 I've been eating chopped cheese since I was like 14, 13 years old.
10:07 So it's like one of those things where you know what goes good together and what doesn't.
10:11 That's the beauty about a chopped cheese is you can switch it up and it comes together so perfect.
10:17 Hello? Bodega. Where can I get you, bro? I got you. What's your name?
10:21 A lot of people have a misunderstanding, a misconception.
10:24 They think a food truck is easy.
10:26 To work in a food truck, it's not your regular job.
10:30 We don't have bathrooms, so you got to be cool with the neighborhoods you pull up with.
10:34 So it comes down to like just being a community.
10:36 When in the summertime and it's hot outside, it's even hotter inside the truck.
10:41 And when it's cold outside, it's even colder inside the truck.
10:43 Working in a food truck is very, very difficult.
10:45 It's hard work, but it pays off if you put in the work.
10:49 What's up, bro? What's going on, man? What can I get you?
10:52 Let me get an OG on a hero, adobo fries, and a peach snapple.
10:57 Give me a couple minutes. I got you, right?
10:58 All right. Good looking, bro.
11:00 I'm from Astoria and been coming here ever since it's been open.
11:04 Instead of eating a hamburger, I feel like the cutting up the burger and putting it in the hero
11:08 makes the texture different. It tastes different.
11:11 The amount of stuff that we have to pay for, insurance, gas, commissary, parking.
11:17 But the license itself is a rental thing.
11:19 So you got to pay that $25,000 every two years.
11:22 It adds up to most of the time actual rent of a restaurant.
11:25 I actually got you right here, my bro.
11:27 Oh, perfect. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.
11:30 Yo, always good seeing you, bro.
11:32 Likewise. Take care, bro.
11:34 My favorite part is the satisfaction I get from the customers that I serve.
11:37 Seeing them return means I'm doing something right.
11:40 Yo. What's up, bro?
11:42 How's everything? Good, man. How you living?
11:43 Doing good, man. What can I get you?
11:44 I'm doing the thing. Let's do... I'm in my hot girl era. I got to go to Hot Chick.
11:48 You got to go to Hot Chick?
11:49 Let's go Hot Chick. Let's do it on fries, though.
11:51 I've known Jeremy for years just from the online food space.
11:56 And then, lo and behold, we ended up moving right up into Astoria.
12:01 So, I mean, now it's a regular thing. I see my boy every week if I can, you know?
12:07 A lot of people have some idea that a chopped cheese is supposed to be $5.
12:13 It's not 2007 anymore.
12:15 Yeah, you can go to a corner store or bodega and get a chopped cheese and it'll be $5, $6.
12:19 These corner stores, they're able to offset those prices and give you a cheaper sandwich
12:24 because they're overcharging you on something else.
12:27 And a lot of people don't put that into perspective and realize that, you know, all we do is sell is chopped cheese.
12:32 So, we shut the window and we take our last order around like 8.
12:35 And then after that, we got like 45 minutes to an hour clean up where we got to clean pretty much everything.
12:41 And then drive the truck back to the Bronx, back to the commissary, park it, sweep and mop on the inside.
12:47 And then that's it. My day is done.
12:49 I'll get home till 10 o'clock maybe, 10, 10.30.
12:52 And then right back to it the next day.
12:54 I really wanted to keep the bodega culture alive and the nostalgic vibe of New York City.
13:00 You know, all the customers that come to my window, they're like, "I haven't seen this since I was a kid."
13:03 And it makes me feel good that I could give them that feeling.
13:07 That's what keeps me going. Feeding off people's energy.
13:09 And when they come to the truck and they have that vibe and they're ecstatic to see me
13:13 and they're glad I'm in their neighborhood, that fills me up.
13:15 I feed off that type of energy.
13:17 [music]
13:23 [MUSIC]