Red Donut adds food trailers; Pour Folk Provisions changes menu

Saro Vay, one of the owners of Red Donut Shop and Red Donut Mobile Shop, stands in front of a trailer on East Second Street in uptown Lexington that will be serving customers while the storefront across the side street is undergoing renovations. {Vikki Broughton Hodges/Davidson Local}

When the Red Donut Shop at 117 N. Main St. closed a week ago for water damage repairs, a new Red Donut food trailer allowed regular customers to get their favorite doughnut or apple fritter fix without skipping a beat.

Saro Vay, who owns the Red Donut Shop along with brothers David, Vonnie and Sanya, said he didn’t plan to park a Red Donut trailer on East Second Street across from the shop as the storefront underwent renovations but it sure came in handy.

Vay and his business partner in the food trailer business, Landon Grant, launched Red Donut Mobile Shop a little more than a month ago, just before a water pipe in the apartment above the shop burst and caused extensive damage to the front of the shop. Luckily, the kitchen was not damaged so the pastries and drinks can be made there and sold from the trailer.

“We didn’t plan [the trailer] for this but now we’re going to use it for our regular customers,” Vay said, adding they now have two Red Donut trailers.

Vay was told it could take two to three weeks to complete renovations but he noted it may be June 1 before they can reopen the storefront.

In the meantime, customers can get most items on the regular menu other than ice cream because there’s no freezer in the trailer. The hours for the trailer are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. (instead of the 6 a.m. opening in the shop) Monday through Saturday.

So far, the mobile shop has been successful, Vay said, noting they have taken the trailers to corporate events and sports events, such as soccer tournaments. They are booked for employee appreciation events at Richard Childress Racing and Atrium Windows and Doors in Welcome.

“It’s going good – there’s more demand than we expected,” he said, adding that’s why they recently acquired an additional trailer.

While Red Donut has gotten into the food trailer business, Pour Folk Provisions Co., located within Goose and the Monkey Brew House at 401 South Railroad St., sold its pizza trailer that served flatbreads on site at the brewery and off-site at events.

But Pour Folk Provisions has gone all in on pizza by installing a new brick pizza oven that can turn out a wide variety of pies within minutes. The made-from-scratch, hand-tossed pizza dough is topped with a variety of ingredients, some of which are reinvented versions of old flatbread favorites as well as some new favorites.

“Pizza’s been our powerhouse since we started selling food,” said Tyler Prevatte, who is a partner in Pour Folk, along with his wife, Madison, who also own Perfect Blend Coffee House, and Brent and Ashlee Moore, co-owners of Goose and the Monkey Brew House.

An artisan pizza is taken from the new brick oven at Pour Folk Provisions Co. inside Goose and the Monkey Brew House in the Depot District in Lexington. {Contributed photo}

“It just made sense to make our own dough and do artisan-style pizzas,” Prevatte said. The group has hired a chef who makes the dough each morning and also bakes pastries sold at the brewery and coffee shop.

There are about a dozen varieties of pizza, including a Tantalizing Thai and Green Goat, which has pesto, goat cheese and Italian sausage, and the Conductor, which has a variety of meats, and Rango’s Roundup, a Southwestern-style pie. There are several vegetarian options and plant-based proteins are available as well as a gluten-free cauliflower crust.

While there are no longer sandwiches on the menu, there are a few of the more popular appetizers from the old menu such as pretzels with beer cheese and cheesy bread.

Also new, in addition to the artisan pizzas, are several signature rice and vegetable bowls such as gochujang marinated chicken in a Korean-inspired bowl, a Tex-Mex chicken bowl and Mediterranean-inspired “Freaky Tzatziki,” which has Italian-marinated chicken, kalamata olives, feta cheese, cucumbers, red onions, tomatoes and tzatziki sauce. The ingredients in the bowls can be served over salads as well.

“We’ve just tried to evolve and migrate to what our customer base likes,” Prevatte explained.