Rolling Stonebaker - Beverly Shores, IN (dunes)

I made a trip to the NW Indiana, SW Michigan dunes area this weekend for my birthday. With the help of dansch, I found a pretty cool new place to eat in the area. It’s a fully mobile wood fired pizza truck. It’s run by a husband and wife team, Andrea and Jim, running 2 trucks. They call it the Rolling Stonebaker. I’m pretty sure one of them is almost always on highway 12 in Beverly Shores at a gas station. The other truck moves around to different areas, new buffalo, Michigan city etc. You can check their whereabouts at their website here: http://rollingstonebaker.com

The truck itself was a renovated 1949 Studebaker, which was previously used as a fire truck. Jim did all of the modifications to the trucks himself (also a part time mechanic as well). Andrea is the mastermind behind the recipes.











We tried 2 pizzas. One was called The Purple Pig, this is their “famous” one. We were told people travel long and far to get their hands on one. And I have to agree, it is worth a trip out of the way for. It was bbq pulled pork topped with a tangy purple cabbage slaw. The pulled pork and slaw were piled thick, and at $9 it was a really good value! I talked to the owner about the pork and learned that they roast the pork butts in the same oven as the pizzas. On Monday morning, the oven is still around 300 from the previous day. He will put them in there and seal it up for 12 hours, and if I understood correctly the oven will keep the heat all day. Needless to say, they know what they’re doing and the pork is done right, very moist and flavorful. The bbq sauce was a bit on the sweet side, I’d have preferred it with more of a vinegar kick, and spiced up a bit too, but the sweetness was ok, balanced by the tang of the purple cabbage slaw on top. The slaw was fresh, crisp and simple. I love a simple slaw. All of the flavors and textures were very well balanced.







The other was also unique, it was a daily special. If you look at the picture of the chalk board you’ll notice the pizzas that come with an egg cracked on top are referred to as breakfast pizzas. I’m guessing that’s just so that the layperson can make some reason out of the ridiculous notion of eggs on pizza! There was nothing else breakfasty about it. The “breakfast” pizza that I ordered was the #2, with “Smoked Beef Tenderloin, Red Potato, Red Onion, Mozzarella and provolone, topped with an egg. “ This one was also very good, quite a bit milder than the previous one, but a well done pizza. It was spiced with a bit of thyme and the smoked tenderloin came off as almost like a jerky. I did not taste a whole lot of smoke on the meat. I think one way to improve this could be to use thicker chunks of potato, They were so thin that I could barely tell they were in there. I’d also have liked the egg yolk to be runny.





It was a great experience, food always tastes better in a gas station parking lot. Next time I’m in the area I’ll be seeking out the truck again. They do cater parties, but when asked about driving to Chicago he seemed a bit worried about driving the truck on the interstate. Though if he would brave it, I think their truck would do very well at a place like maxwel street market.



Rolling Stonebaker
for current location:
http://www.rollingstonebaker.com
219-246-0068

Wow, that looks wonderful!

There is a similar mobile wood fired pizza oven truck out of Madison, WI called La Fortuna. They are at New Glarus Brewing Company's beer garden on Saturdays in the summer.

laikom wrote:I made a trip to the NW Indiana, SW Michigan dunes area this weekend for my birthday. With the help of dansch, I found a pretty cool new place to eat in the area. It’s a fully mobile wood fired pizza truck. It’s run by a husband and wife team, Andrea and Jim, running 2 trucks. They call it the Rolling Stonebaker. I’m pretty sure one of them is almost always on highway 12 in Beverly Shores at a gas station. The other truck moves around to different areas, new buffalo, Michigan city etc. You can check their whereabouts at their website here: http://rollingstonebaker.com

The truck itself was a renovated 1949 Studebaker, which was previously used as a fire truck. Jim did all of the modifications to the trucks himself (also a part time mechanic as well). Andrea is the mastermind behind the recipes.



Rolling Stonebaker
for current location:
http://www.rollingstonebaker.com
219-246-0068

The truck is at the Griffith Central Market and will be open every Friday from 3pm until 8pm. I had an $8.00 sausage pizza that was cracker thin with a perfect char on the bottom. Delish!

Griffith Central Market
698 N Broad St
Griffith, IN 46319

stalked these guys a few weeks ago from a farmers market where they were cooking to their roadside location in Beverly where we actually got to try a pizza.


struck out at the Chesterton Farmers Market:







thought this pizza was pretty good.

The Rolling Stonebaker can often be found outside one of NWI's newest micro/nano-breweries, Hunter's Brewing, in Chesterton. They will be there tonight.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 3165053963

Full Disclosure: I went to college with one of the owners/brewers of Hunter's.

That Margherita looks great. Now I want to try this and Stop 50 next time I'm down there.

Ram4 wrote:That Margherita looks great. Now I want to try this and Stop 50 next time I'm down there.

They are both great, I eat at both places regularly - usually lunch when I go to Rolling Stonebaker and usually dinner at Stop 50 (not same day!). Rolling Stonebaker was adding a third truck, and they post almost daily on Facebook, so check there to find out where they are on any given day (and what the specials/in season are).

Great choices...great folks that own and run both (funny how good people make good food).