Cuisine from a cart

By Sonia Dasgupta

It’s a rainy Wednesday around noon and steam billows from a silver hot dog stand on Main Street. As Bennie Dollard cooks up a cheese steak for one of his regular customers, Sam Wyatt, they talk about his week.

“How’s your leg?” Bennie says.

“It’s ok, not as bad as Monday,” Wyatt says.

“My mom always says when it rains, the little aches you have come out,” Bennie says.

Wyatt, an employee of the university’s honors program, discovered Bennie’s stand in mid-July and now comes once or twice per week. He says he knows what a good cheese steak should taste like because he is from the suburbs of Philadelphia and he says Bennie’s are great.

“It’s the smell, the grill,” he says. “There’s a flavor that comes from charring meat that doesn’t come from anywhere else.”

The stand located right in front of the National 5 & 10 not only has the simple hot dog, but also an array of sandwiches from kielbasa and sausage to various Caribbean-influenced offerings. Bennie also sells breakfast sandwiches and his best seller is “The Hustler” — philly steak, two eggs, sautéed onions, hash browns and cheese.

Cuisine Fantasy began almost three years ago, when Bennie resigned from his 15-year executive chef position at Vanguard, a Pennsylvania investment company, and decided to start working for himself. He bought the stand from the previous owner, Diane Smith, who had worked there for 14 years. He named his cart Cuisine Fantasy, he says, because he is always thinking of new combinations of meat, cheese and vegetables in bread.

“ I have a million sandwich ideas in my head,” he says.

The Nigerian cheese steak — a mix of Philly cheese steak and chicken–is one of his favorite creations.

Bennie says when he first started selling steak, people would read the sign on the back of his cart and laugh.

“They didn’t think I could do it right,” Bennie says. “ ‘It’s not a Philly’ they’d say.”

Most people from Delaware know the best cheese steaks can be found in Philadelphia, so a cheese steak from a cart in Delaware pales in comparison. Now, the Caribbean jerk chicken and the Montego Bay Caribbean Beef are considered customer favorites.

Bennie says he sells about 40 or more sandwiches per day.

“I was the hot dog man, and now they don’t know what to call me,” he says. “I guess the guy in the cheese steak cart, or just Bennie.”

Bennie is a native of Delaware. He grew up in Wilmington and went to Mount Pleasant High School. He majored in the fine arts at Bowie State University in Maryland.

“At the time I was really undecided, but I knew I had a passion for food,” Bennie says.

After college he got a few random jobs and then landed the job with Vanguard. Although Bennie says he was unhappy, he used his time at Vanguard to propose a business plan. Bennie says it was a great decision to stop working for other people and to start his own business. He says at Vanguard he just managed the staff, made menus and did not cook, which was his true passion.

Now he spends 13 to 14 hours per day working, most of the time crammed into a 2.5-foot by 3-foot space and he said he loves it. On Thursdays and Saturdays he is also a vendor at a car auction.

Bennie says the biggest thing that bothers him is the stigma carried by food carts. He says people think they are dirty and gross. His daily wardrobe is casual, a black T-shirt with Cuisine Fantasy written across the chest, a maroon apron, and khakis. Perhaps his most distinctive accoutrement is the hairnet he wears (“for health reasons,” he says) over this tight dreadlocks.

“I changed the whole concept,” Bennie says. “I constantly wear gloves and there are not too many carts that do that.”

Matt Martinez, an employee of the National 5 & 10, is a regular customer.

“If he had chairs, he would be the best place ever,” Martinez says. He is a fan of “The Big Country,” turkey bacon, sausage, three eggs, sautéed peppers and onions and cheese, for breakfast.

Dan Oristian is another one of Bennie’s regular customers. This graduate student finds himself at Bennie’s cart twice per week and it is not just for the great service and low price.

“I always have a good conversation with him,” Oristian says. “When you’ve had a rough day, he always has nice things to say.”

Bennie can be found cooking up cheap cuisine every weekday from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. He said he hopes to extend his hours in the spring by offering a late night service from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Bennie says he doesn’t have much spare time but he spends time with his fiancée and is looking forward to a great future. Bennie says he sometimes does think about children and starting a family.

“Do what you’re happy with because if you don’t you’ll be miserable,” he says.

He says having a business proposal early is good and being focused on what you want is great.

“Everything I make, I prepare like it’s my last,” he says.

A line continues to grow as Bennie puts together a customized breakfast bagel for another customer. As he slowly prepares the eggs scrambled with two slices of bacon, he and the customer discuss the weather.

“This is so random,” she says. “It’s sunny one day and rains the next.”

“Yeah, strange,” Bennie replies. “Hope you don’t get too wet.”

They exchange a few dollars for a sandwich and Bennie moves on to the next person in line. “How can I help you?”